


Everything Burns

by xanderwilde



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Angst, Backstory, Childhood Trauma, Clowns, F/M, Flashbacks, Hallucinations, Joker (DCU) Whump, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Origin Story, Original Character Death(s), Pre-Canon, Pre-Movie 2: Dark Knight (2008), Prequel, Psychological Drama, Psychological Trauma, Soldiers, Trauma, War, What-If, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-01-16 13:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 87,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18522787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanderwilde/pseuds/xanderwilde
Summary: Jack stared out across the water, ignoring how cold the wind had gotten. Instinctively, he pulled the cards from his pocket and rifled through them, smiling like they were old friends. The joker card sat on the top and Jack flipped it around to face him, tracing the faded bloodstains that marred the surface.“Guess it’s just you and me, now.”A what-if prequel of the Joker's past before TDK.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> wassup, this is my first fic on AO3...any sort of feedback is appreciated :)

Cigarette smoke and murmured voices clogged the air of the dark alley, punctuated with the occasional curse or spark from a lighter. High above, hidden behind heavy grey clouds, the moon shone down on the city below. Not enough to cast light on the comings and goings of the crowded sidewalks and roads; not even the murky street lamps, spotted and smeared with grime, could do that.  
Gotham was used to the dark. Even during the day, light never fully pierced through the haze of city filth that hung in the air like a disease. Most didn’t mind…it made it easier to scurry through the bustling crowds without being noticed. This wasn’t a city you wanted to be noticed in, it was a city where you wanted to go about your day as quietly as you could before hurrying back to the safety of home.  
“Home” was a generous term for this particular part of Gotham, where a person was lucky to find a tarp-and-box shack with fewer than a dozen holes in it. This was the Narrows, the underbelly of the city that ran rampant with crime and depravity of all kinds. It had always been like this, and always would be, if the rich socialites continued to think of the people in the Narrows as inconvenient parasites that didn’t deserve their attention or respect.  
The man who entered the alley paused to listen to the hum of lethargic activity that rose and fell like a poorly orchestrated symphony. Teenagers with gaunt faces and matted hair exchanged drugs in plain sight, scattering when anyone else came too close. Their eyes were hollow, and homemade piercings hung from their lips like hooks on a fish, infection crawling at the corners of the metal rings. Men in tattered coats lounged against the damp, molding walls of the alley, cigarettes and joints dangling from fingers and mouths as they chatted with one another, none really caring what anyone else had to say. Or what they said, for that matter.  
He kept his head low as he weaved his way silently through the threadbare throng, avoiding eye contact with anything but the oil and mud-splattered ground. It was cobblestone, probably an artifact from the city’s original foundations. Probably beautiful back in the day, but now it was old and worn, with stones missing here and there, looking like the gaps of lost teeth in some hideous mouth.  
The man smiled at the thought.  
One of the bolder teens, a boy of about eighteen or nineteen, wearing a torn sports jacket and an insolent grin, stepped in front of the man, and he stopped. It was too dark for either one to see the other’s face, but by their stances, neither looked like they planned on moving out of the way. The boy rocked back and forth on his ankles, his eyes glazed over. Clearly, his audacity wasn’t a regular trait, but with the amount of pot he had smoked that evening, he seemed prepared to take on the world. At least, that was how he wanted to look in front of an equally disheveled girl who stood backed into a corner nervously, watching the two with cautious, suspicious eyes.  
“An out-of-towner, huh?” the boy commented, his fingers fluttering restlessly at his sides. The man kept his gaze on the ground.  
“It’s none of your business.”  
“Wrong answer, bud. I make it my business to know who comes around these parts.” It was a bare-faced lie; the kid could not have cared less who trespassed in that particular alley of the Narrows, but for his purposes of impressing the wary-eyed girl, he cared tonight.  
The man, who by his lean figure could not have been many years older than the boy, was unmoved. “Get out of my way.” His voice was quiet, muffled by the high collar of his coat that nearly wrapped around his face, but there was a vaguely threatening tone that caught the boy’s ear. He narrowed his drug-clouded eyes and cracked the knuckles on his right hand.  
“You think you can get smart with me?” He stepped closer to the man, looking for a fight. The man sidestepped him, tired of the pointless bravado, but the boy wasn’t planning on giving up. He followed the newcomer out of the alley and onto the narrow sidewalk that snaked along the edge of the pothole-warped street. Pools of greenish-yellow light shone from the cracked glass panes that encased the street lamps, but everything else was covered in a dark fog. The street was abandoned for the night, with only the occasional wanderer gracing the equally dilapidated sidewalk.  
“Hey,” The kid blocked the man’s path again, the leering, lopsided grin still plastered on his face. “Hey, where d’ja think you’re going?” He flipped his tangled hair from his eyes and scowled. The girl had followed them tentatively, her arms wrapped around her torso as if she was cold.  
“Why don’t you leave him alone, Connor?” she asked pleadingly, her voice scared and apologetic at the same time. “Just leave him alone and we’ll go.”  
The boy was too caught up in his own imagined heroics to pay attention. “This guy has to learn some manners,” he replied, “and I’m gonna teach him.”  
“Please, let’s just go.” Desperation crept into her voice, as if she sensed the threat that hung in the air. “It’s not worth it.”  
“It’s worth it to me.” he snarled, intentionally knocking his shoulder roughly against the stranger’s. “What gives him the right to come parading in here in his fancy coat, all stuck-up and too good for us? I bet you,” he jostled the man again, with more intention this time, “just came here to gloat, didn’t you? You’re probably one of those rich pigs who live the high life in this city, who wouldn’t even notice if all the poor folks just dropped dead right here and now. That’s what you are, aren’t you? You don’t know what it’s like, living like this. We don’t got nothing here, and you think you can just come and—“ His ranting was suddenly cut off as the man jerked upright, grabbing the boy by the throat and shoving him up against the side of a building along the sidewalk. The boy struggled against the unexpectedly powerful grip, his eyes suddenly twice as wide with terror. The girl let out a single, sharp shriek before the man’s gaze darted toward her. Even in the darkness, she could see the look in his eyes. A warning to keep quiet. She obeyed.  
The man’s attention turned back to the boy, who stared at his now-exposed face with a mixture of horror and awe. For a moment he thought the man was smiling impossibly wide, a giant Cheshire grin literally stretching from ear to ear. Then he realized it was a pair of curved lesions beginning at the corners of his mouth and slicing through his cheeks. The boy renewed his struggling before the hand at his throat was pressed down tight enough to choke him. He froze, staring.  
“I’m not what you think I am.” The man’s voice was as quiet as before, and just as threatening. His dark eyes were fixed on the boy’s face, which was contorted in fear. “You think you’ve got the bad end of the bargain, don’t you? You’ve been cheated out of a million opportunities, haven’t you? No one cares about you, and no one ever will.” He shrugged. “You’ve got that part right. It’s a cruel world full of cruel people, and you’re right that you’ve got a bad lot in life.  
“But,” he continued, and his eyes grew darker until they looked almost black, “there’s one little problem. You don’t know as much as you think. You think you have no one to turn to. Nowhere to go, and no reason for living. Well, except for that potato-faced kid over there.” He nodded at the girl. Indignation flashed across the boy’s face for a second, but as soon as the man’s gaze turned back to him, it dissolved back into fear. The man let go of him and stepped back. For a moment, relief flooded through the boy, but it dissipated as the man pulled a switchblade almost contemplatively out of his coat pocket. There was a faint click as it flashed open.  
“You think you know what it’s like. To be alone. To lose everything.” A gaggle of drunken teens straggled by, laughing and talking with more enthusiasm than coherence. The boy stared pleadingly at them, trying to get their attention, but muggings were common enough in the Narrows, and no one paid him a second glance. The man watched them stumble off into the distance, then turned back to the boy, unfazed by the interruption. “You have no idea. You don’t know, and you never will. I do. Speaking of which,” an unexpected gleam shone suddenly in his eyes, and his mouth stretched into a real grin, demented and nightmarish, “you want to know how I got these scars?”


	2. Chapter One

_ One Year Earlier _

 

The merciless rays of the sun beat down with such intensity that they seemed crimson with heat. The air rippled like ocean waves, and it was impossible to stare too far into the distance without the view being distorted beyond recognition. 

The three men huddled in the sliver of shade given off by the side of a bulletproof-encased truck stared anyway, their minds too subdued by the heat to do much else of anything. Sweat dripped down the backs of their necks, past the collars of their dull camouflage uniforms. Upon closer inspection, “men” was hardly a fair classification; they were, in fact, three of the youngest soldiers in their unit. Yet despite their still-boyish faces, their eyes held a weariness often only known to the very old or those who had seen the destruction of war firsthand.

The one who was leaning up against the side of the truck, arms crossed, shifted from one foot to the other impatiently. “We were supposed to be moving out forever ago.”

The tallest of the three dragged his tired gaze away from the endless view of sand he had been listlessly studying, and pulled a cigarette from a pocket of his uniform. “More like five minutes. Probably something’s come up.” He stuck the cigarette between his teeth and turned back to his pockets, searching for a light. 

The third member of the small group pulled a pack of matches from his own pocket and passed one to his friend, who glanced around hesitantly. “What’re you doing with matches on you? If someone finds out, you’re done for.”

He shrugged, still holding out the match. “It’s not like I can be demoted. I’m already the lowest rank. And so are you.” Rolling the cigarette nervously back and forth between his teeth, the other paused, conflicted, before taking it. “I wouldn’t have them with me, but I lost my lighter.”

The one lounging against the truck gave a quiet snort of laughter. “Always the rebel, Adams.”

Mike Adams tossed his box of matches at him, and the box broke open. Matches skittered across the sandy ground and all three’s eyes grew wide. They scrambled to pick them up and shove them back into the box, which was promptly returned to its original owner’s pocket. The moment they had finished hiding the evidence, a voice in the distance called over a megaphone,

“We’re moving out! Get going!”

The tallest of the three soldiers rolled his eyes, lighting up his cigarette. “All that, and no time for a smoke.” he complained as the truck groaned to life and stole away their shadowy corner. “Honestly, I—“

“You three!” Another voice barked sharply, and their heads shot up, their slumped shoulders stiffening as they stood to attention. An older man appeared from behind the slowly moving truck, wearing a sergeant’s uniform and a warning glare. “Adams, Hyde, and Napier, am I right?”

“Yes, sir.” they replied at the same time. 

“I don’t recall me saying at any point you could be taking a smoke when we’re working.” His glare fastened on Adams, who shot a resentful look at Charlie Hyde, the perpetrator of their situation. Jack Napier, who had been watching from the side of the truck, kept quiet. 

“No, sir.” Adams mumbled, the cigarette still dangling from the side of his mouth. The sergeant stepped closer and plucked it out, tossing it to the ground and grinding it into the sand beneath his heel. 

“You’d better watch yourselves, boys, or you might just find all your cigarettes missing when you get back to the outpost. Along with the matches I know you’ve been hiding under your bed, Hyde.” His accusing stare darted from one to the next. “Now, move yourselves. We’re heading out.”

The sergeant turned and left. The moment he was out of sight, Hyde exhaled loudly, relieved. “Close one that time. You’re the only one he doesn’t have beef on, Napier.”

Jack shrugged, scattering the crumpled remains of the cigarette with the toe of his boot. The pieces caught up in the hot wind that swirled by, mingling with the dust and sand. “Can’t afford to get kicked out of the army over something like that. I’ve got a lot riding on this.”

“Yeah, cause boy wonder here’s gonna make a name for himself once he’s outta here and riding home on his free college, right?” Hyde slapped him playfully on the back as they walked along in the dust the truck was kicking up. Jack shrugged, his eyes fixed on the ground. 

“If that’s how it’s got to go.”

“Because,” Hyde continued unabashedly, “he’s got a pretty girl back home he’s waitin’ to impress.”

A faint flush stole up Jack’s sunburned cheeks, and a shy smile quirked the corners of his mouth. Forgetting his humiliation a minute earlier, Adams joined in on the conversation. “You heard from her lately?”

Jack nodded. His girlfriend was a popular subject among his fellow soldiers, firstly because she was one of the few people whose letters actually got through to that particular outpost, and secondly because Jack Napier, with his painfully quiet personality, seemed the least likely candidate among the group of young twenty-something soldiers to secure a girl of his own. He himself was always less than talkative about her to his fellow army friends, but they were content to believe it was a classic high school sweetheart situation. 

Jack wished it had been like that.

Maybe if it had, he wouldn’t be halfway across the world, struggling through blinding sandstorms with a gun in his hands and dog tags with the words, “Napier, PV1” engraved on them next to his serial number, around his neck. 

Their conversation trailed off as the sound of gunfire drew closer, and all three of them pulled their helmets back on over their sweat-soaked hair, squinting through the haze of sand in the air.  The town they were marching in on looked deserted, but they had seen just enough action to know that meant nothing. 

Jack kept his finger on the trigger of his gun and tried to ignore the stinging torrent of sand that surrounded them like a storm. If it was a storm, the sounds of explosions in the distance could be thunder.

Adams’ suddenly jerked the barrel of his gun up toward a nearby rooftop, shouting, “Sniper!” His friends reacted instinctively, aiming their own weapons where he was pointing, and sending a rain of bullets at the faint figure who stood there. It wavered and fell backward out of sight. From beneath the scarf he had pulled up over his face to keep the sand at bay, Adams drew a breath of relief. Hyde elbowed him in the side appreciatively.

“Thanks, bud.”

Adams was about to respond when twenty more soldiers materialized from around the side of the building, none of them in a U.S. uniform. They kept their guns trained on the three young privates, who automatically moved into a circle, their backs to one another. Before anyone could take aim and shoot, a flood of assorted soldiers interrupted the scene, preoccupied with their own struggles. They had come from the other side of the town, and it wasn’t clear who was pushing who back. Whatever the case, at least they had prevented a point-blank execution of the three friends, who were currently separated by the confusion and commotion of the fighting around them. Dust, blood, and the sharp sound of gunfire filled the air.

Jack was retreating behind an armored truck to reload his gun when a soldier in a black uniform darted around the corner, raising his own weapon. Without giving himself time to think, Jack swung the barrel at the man’s head, and he collapsed in a heap. 

Five months in the middle of military action still hadn’t hardened Jack to the horrors of death and killing. He preferred to shoot from a distance, avoiding eye contact with anyone he killed. He had unnaturally good aim for someone who had never even held a gun before enlisting, and his entire unit relied on him to fell the most difficult of the enemy.  _ That  _ he could do. It was no problem if he couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t have time to think about how they had families, had lives outside of all this ugliness. 

But when it came to hand-to-hand combat, where his eyes would unconsciously be drawn to the faces of the men and boys he killed, when he could catch a gaze before it drifted off in death, that was a different story. Whenever  _ that  _ happened, he tried to distract himself with other thoughts. The poker game he’d played with his friends the night before, back in the outpost. What he was going to write in his next letter to Jeannie. How Hyde was going to get in trouble for leaving matches in his pockets while they were in combat.

Anything but how the eyes of the man he killed would still be fastened on him, even in death. How that glassy stare seemed to silently say,  _ You didn’t have to do that. I didn’t have to die.  _ How someone would have to receive news (how did they do it over here? Did they have notification officers? Did they tell the wives to sit down before they broke the news?) that their son or brother or husband was dead.

He couldn’t think of those things, he knew, or it would drive him insane. 

So he drew in a deep, shaking breath, finished reloading his gun, and stepped over the limp body, back into the line of fire. 

He preferred to be out here, in the middle of all the pandemonium. Somehow, it seemed more fair than lurking around in the dark, taking shots at lone, unsuspecting soldiers. Here, out in the open, in the heat of the moment and drowning in chaos,  _ here,  _ it was fair. You had just as much chance as everyone else to live, and just as much chance to die. Jack liked that. It was better than shooting people in the back when they were off-guard.

Funny how chaos was the only truly fair part of war.

Pushing his thoughts aside, Jack focused on the task ahead of him. Their unit had been sent to the evacuated town to take out a group of insurgents, but they hadn’t banked on so many. For a moment he looked around for Adams and Hyde, but there was no way to find them in this blinding mess. 

They could wait. Jack gave up looking and concentrated on his aim. Even in the sand and dust-filled winds, he didn’t miss a shot. It bothered him no end if he ever did miss…it seemed like a stupid waste of bullets, and even though he knew they had an endless supply, some ridiculous part of his mind was endlessly irritated by the thought of using up a perfectly good bullet. His father would have called him neurotic for letting something like that matter to him, if his father had known what the word neurotic meant. The more Jack thought about it, the more he realized there was actually quite a long list of things that irrationally upset him. If the single deck of cards he owned weren’t shuffled back into perfect order when he wasn’t using them, or if the sheets on his bed weren’t tucked in with perfect symmetry, or even if something stupid like a cigarette was wasted (he’d had a hard time ignoring the one the sergeant had ground into the dirt earlier) it stuck with him all day. 

Well, what if he was neurotic? It wasn’t like it made him a worse shot. And that was all that mattered at the moment.

He raised his gun calmly, focused and collected. The fighting raged around him, bullets whistling past him and dust kicking up into his eyes. He blinked it away and kept shooting. 

If this was the only way to survive until he got back home, then it was what he was going to do.

It seemed like hours until it all stopped. Really, it had only been about twenty minutes. When all the insurgents had either been killed, subdued, or had run off, Jack strapped his gun back over his shoulder and wiped his face off with the sleeve of his uniform. The dust and sweat always mingled into a sort of mud that coated the faces of the soldiers, looking like clumsily applied makeup that was too dark for their sun-scorched cheeks. For some reason, it always struck Jack as oddly funny.

Right now, he was too tired to think anything was funny. All the adrenaline that had been rushing through his veins had dispersed, leaving him feeling exhausted. Stepping over the bloodied bodies that lay in piles around the town, some mangled beyond recognition, Jack kept an eye open for his friends. They had only known each other for a month, but the three had become close even in that short amount of time and had agreed to always check up on each other after any of them were in combat. Adams and Hyde always brought it up in their confident, unbothered ways, as if there never seemed to be another option. Jack always admired the way they could talk about walking straight into danger and have such belief that they would emerge alive. Personally, he could never hide his own doubts…that every time they saw each other it could be their last. 

But maybe that was him just being paranoid.  _ Lighten up,  _ he told himself, skirting a particularly grotesque pile of bodies.  _ You’ll find them, and you’ll be playing poker with them tonight back at the outpost, just like every night. _

Despite his attempts at reassuring himself, he felt nothing but a flood of relief when Adams emerged from a cloud of smoke and dust, clambering over bodies as well. Jack waved him over, and Adams obeyed wordlessly, his eyes fixed on the ground. Jack chewed his lip as his friend came closer, worry shooting through him again.

Adams finally came in speaking distance and then he stopped, leaning up against a wall of a building that looked just about ready to collapse. Jack hurried over to him, almost tripping over an unoccupied helmet that lay on the torn-up street.

“Where’s Hyde?” he asked breathlessly, adrenaline rushing back into his body as Adams finally glanced up at him, his expression hollow.

“Caught a bullet in the back of the head back there.” He poked a thumb over his shoulder listlessly. His voice was toneless, eyes glassy with shock. “I saw him go down.”

They were silent, the wind whistling harshly around them. Jack nodded, feeling strangely calm, as if he had asked the time of day and it had been given to him. What else was he supposed to do? He had known one of them would be killed sometime. That was what happened in a war, wasn’t it? He felt a flash of annoyance toward Adams. Why was  _ he _ so surprised? Hadn’t he known, too?

Death was just a given eventuality. Especially in their line of work. There was no reason to be surprised.

“Just…fell down.” Adams continued, staring morosely at the ground. “Kinda like he tripped. Except his head blew up.” He put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and bit down on it hard.

Jack wished he could feel something. The numb passiveness that had stolen over his consciousness was infuriating, but it wouldn’t go away. He could see the stark horror in Adams’ dark blue eyes, the anger and disgust he felt for whatever nameless soldier had gunned down their friend, and he wished he could feel it too. But he didn’t. He felt his body trembling, but he couldn’t distinguish any emotion at all. 

It was almost worse that way.

That night, back at the outpost, they played poker as they always did. Two other young privates, Ace Cantrell and Matthew Burns, joined them as they always did. The only difference was the missing place where Charlie Hyde used to sit, cross-legged, on the floor.

They played quietly, eyes empty and heads bowed, focusing their attention on the cards they clutched in their dust-spotted hands. 

They’d lost the chips a few weeks earlier, so they played with cigarettes and bullets instead.


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I did some research, but I know basically nothing about military stuff, so if there's any mistakes there, just pretend that's how the army works in the DC world or something)
> 
> also, all the flashback sections will be set apart with italics

 

 

It was well past two in the morning, but Jack couldn’t sleep. He stared up at the bunk above him from where he lay, flat on his back, on the pallet that counted as a bed. All around him, the other privates in his unit were asleep. The room was silent, and even the wind howling outside was muffled by the flimsy walls of the outpost. 

Despite all that, he was wide awake.

He thought about the hours leading up to the fighting earlier. How he and Adams and Hyde had talked about the most mundane, unimportant things like any friends did. How none of them knew one of them would die before the day was over.

Even though it wasn’t cold, Jack shivered. At times like these, that persistent voice in his head that whispered, _Was it really worth it?_ grew too loud to ignore. He usually pushed it away again, but tonight he couldn’t.

He told himself it _was_ worth it, that everything would work out okay in the end if luck continued to be on his side. But that small part of his mind that wouldn’t shut up interrupted that thought.

_You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to march your sorry selfacross the world to prove a point._

_No,_ he argued with himself, _it wasn’t just to prove a point. It was a logical, rational decision that made the most sense._

_It was_ all _about proving a point. Proving you’re better than everyone thinks. Proving you can rise above your station, right? That you’re worthy of her?_

He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his hands to his temples. _Just be quiet. Please, please be quiet._ He wished he could sleep, if only to shut out those thoughts that wouldn’t leave him alone. 

It was so much harder when he knew they held a grain of truth.

He reached under the skeleton of a bedspring, fumbling around until he came up with Jeannie’s last letter. It was too dark to read it, but even after traveling across the world, it still held the scent of her perfume. Something expensive, probably. Something _he_ could never afford to give her. 

_See? You still think she’s too good for you. I told you it was about proving a point._

Irritated even more by the stubbornness of his own mind, Jack got up out of bed and crept across the floor, navigating his way around the sleeping bodies of soldiers. In the darkness, they could have passed for corpses. Just like the ones he’d seen earlier, strewn about the streets of the town. Minus the blood, of course. He tried to push the thought from his mind. 

It wasn’t any cooler outside, but at least the air wasn’t trapped and stuffy. A sand-ridden breeze caught the flap of the door as he stepped out. The sky was bare of any clouds, and the moon looked withered and uninviting as it hung among the dull stars. 

Jack sat down on the ground, blinking away the dust that drifted up toward his face, and opened the letter. He’d already read it more times than he could count in the past three days, but somehow he never got tired of seeing those words. It was a shorter letter than usual, only a few lines, but to Jack it was a priceless treasure. 

_I got your last letter yesterday. By the time you read this, it’ll probably have been a while. Nothing new here, but the other day I was talking to a lady in a department store and she noticed my engagement ring. I told her you’re in the military, and I suddenly realized something. I realized how proud I am of you, Jack. I really am. I mean, I knew that already, but I’d never thought about it much until then. You’ve done it, now all you have to do is come home as soon as you can, right? I hope that will be soon, don’t you?_

_I miss you, baby. Let me know if you got this letter. Please be as safe as you can, okay?_

_I love you._

_Jeannie._

Jack folded the creased letter back up and ran a finger absentmindedly along the edge of the paper, staring up at the bleak sky. He thought about how he, along with Adams and Hyde, had sat in this exact place only last week, looking up at the same stars. Talking about what they would do when this was all over. When they were back home. 

And what had changed about that? They’d all be going home. Nothing different there.

It just happened that one would be going in a pine box.

A sharp, stinging pain shot through his finger and he glanced down at the paper cut he’d thoughtlessly sustained from fidgeting with the edge of the letter. Jack quickly drew his hand away, but there was no blood. He sighed, relieved. If anything happened to that letter, he’d never forgive himself. It was one of the few scraps of home he had, the few pieces of normalcy he could bring with him into this underworld of destruction and horror. Carefully,he placed the letter in his pocket.

He closed his eyes and thought back to the time when they had first met. Him, and the girl he never thought he could ever deserve. He still couldn’t believe she’d chosen him, out of all the guys she could have had. _Why’d she go for the loser?_ There was not a single attribute he could connect to himself that could explain the phenomena that was their relationship, but Jeannie said she loved him, and he couldn’t bring himself to doubt that. That would be a disservice to her. Besides, it was clear she _did_ love him…why else would she have given everything up? 

Jack simply couldn’t reconcile himself to the fact that _he_ had been even a considered candidate for her affection. 

They’d met entirely by chance, and he always wondered after that how his life would have gone if things had gone differently. He knew one thing for certain; if they hadn’t met, he would not in a million years have been caught joining the military and being sent overseas to be in active duty. 

But on the other hand, he would have never found the one person in the world he’d ever truly loved.

 

\+ + + + + + +

 

_Jack stared longingly at the clock as the hands ticked with agonizing slowness toward the hour mark. Not because he had anything particularly exciting to do once his shift was over, but because he was so terribly, inescapably bored. He rocked back and forth on his feet, cracked his knuckles, memorized the shadowy pattern of water stains on the ceiling, anything to keep his mind occupied._

_He was so caught up in finding something to think about that he almost missed the voice that was speaking to him._

_Frowning, he turned his attention back to the newcomer at the desk, picking up a stack of books so he looked busy. “What?”_

_“Do you have a section on philosophy?”_

_He finally glanced up at the owner of the voice, and his eyes widened in surprise. The library in the Narrows was not exactly a popular spot with anyone outside that particular part of Gotham. It only existed because the city council had funded it and no one cared enough to tear it down. In fact, it wasn’t as much a library as it was a spot for chainsmokers and druggies to congregate during a break or after work._

_As if the people of the Narrows had jobs._

_It didn’t take an experienced eye to know straight off the bat that the girl standing on the other side of the help desk was one hundred percent not from the Narrows. If Jack needed any further evidence beyond her uncomfortable expression, the blue and grey high school uniform with the words “Gotham Academy” neatly monogramed onto the shirt confirmed his assumption. There was no way that anyone who went to the number-one prestigious academy in the entire city came from this dump._

_So, she was either here for some stupid charity project, or maybe she was researching a level of humanity that was a lower tier than her. Either way, she’d come to the right place._

_Jack was so caught up in his thoughts that he had already forgotten her question._

_“What did you say?”_

_“I said, do you have any books on philosophy?” The girl raised her voice slightly, annoyed at having to repeat herself three times. Jack realized she probably thought he was a complete idiot. Oh, well. Let her think that._

_Then he realized she was actually asking for books. Why would a rich kid like her even think about coming to_ this _library? This wasn’t a place to read, it was a place to get high and watch a fight or two out back if it was one of the more exciting days. Maybe she was the idiot._

_“Uh, on philosophy? Like, real philosophy?”_

_She nodded expectantly, watching him with a critical eye. Jack scratched the back of his neck. He wasn’t used to actually talking to people with this job…usually they just slunk past him without making eye contact and disappeared between the stacks. He wasn’t a naturally talkative person to begin with, and if he was forced to hold a conversation, especially with a pretty girl, he never knew what to say._

_But she was asking a simple question, so maybe he could give her a simple answer._

_“I guess we do. Probably along the back wall. What exactly are you looking for?”_

_“Euthyphro. By Plato. You know, the one where they guy’s talking to the other guy in prison.”_

_Jack didn’t know. His father wasn’t exactly disposed to literature, and he’d taken his son out of school three years ago when he found himself owing a pretty hefty debt to the landlord of their apartment. He’d made Jack get a job so he could “help pay off” the money, but Jack knew that was just his version of saying it would help pay for the inordinate amounts of alcohol he drank._

_He hadn’t minded much…school had been boring and he didn’t have any friends he was leaving behind. But now he felt a sudden shot of resentment toward his father and wished he could have had a smart answer for the girl who was looking at him with such perceptive eyes._

_“Uh, yeah. We might have that one.” He drummed his fingers nervously on the desk. “So. Back wall. Look there. You’ll find it past that guy right there.” He nodded at a burly man who had just finished shooting up with something that was probably illegal and was now staggering out of sight into the darkness of the back of the library._

_The girl glanced over her shoulder at where Jack was looking, then frowned. “You’re not too busy right now, are you?”_

_“Why?” Why did he always have to sound so suspicious? It was a perfectly innocent question._

_“Well, if it’s not too much trouble, could you maybe go with me back there?”_

_“What’s the matter? You scared?” He hadn’t meant it to sound so mean, but it was too late now. The girl’s expression grew disappointed and she shrugged._

_“Okay, never mind then. Thanks for your help.” She turned on her heel and walked off without hesitation. Jack watched her make her way around the few slumped figures in the threadbare chairs that had sat in the same places since the library had been built, her figure stiff and on edge. But she never looked back at him._

_Jack blew out an exasperated sigh, running his hands down the sides of his face. Great. He’d just offended one of Gotham’s elite, now he was sending her off into the uncharted waters of the local drunks and kids looking for a fight. If something happened to her, and someone blamed him…_

_He took off after her, pushing past the few stragglers who wandered aimlessly across the floor. Catching up to her, he tried to look nonchalant. “I’m not busy. I’ll come with you.”_

_She glanced at him in surprise, looking half-grateful, half-unimpressed. “You don’t have to if you don’t want. I’m sure you’ve got things to do.”_

_“I don’t.”_

_She shrugged again. “Well, if it makes you happy. Why the sudden change of heart?”_

_He licked his lips, a habit of his when he was nervous. “Um, honestly I didn’t want to be sued if something happened to you. Because, you know, you’re…” He gestured wordlessly. The girl tilted her head._

_“Unsurpassably beautiful?”_

_“Um, well…”_

_She laughed, eyes twinkling with humor. “I’m kidding. You meant because I’m wealthy, right? That I have powerful people who care about me?”_

_He nodded mutely. The girl ran a hand along the books they were passing. “Tact isn’t really your thing, is it?”_

_He scoffed, trying to salvage his shattered dignity. “I didn’t even say anything.”_

_“But you were going to.” They had reached the back wall, where a shelf with a grand display of six books sat, the words “Plato and Socrates” emblazoned on a faded sign above it. The girl hurried forward and Jack followed, keeping a wary eye on the few people around them. He wasn’t worried for himself, but a rich girl in the Narrows was a sitting duck._

_Unconcerned for her own safety, the girl turned back to him, holding a slim book. Jack raised an eyebrow. “You came all the way down here for that?”_

_“All the copies at the school and the Gotham public library were taken. I have a paper on it due in two days and everyone else in my class has the other copies, I guess. Or there’s been a surge of Plato fanatics lately.” She began walking back to the desk, and Jack followed her._

_“What’s it about?” She glanced at him and his face flushed as he realized his slip-up. Great, now she knew he was a certified moron who hadn’t made it past the ninth grade, even if that wasn’t his fault. She would probably laugh in his face and go home to tell her family about the idiot in the Narrows who didn’t know what some book by some old guy was about._

_But the girl didn’t do any of those things, to Jack’s infinite surprise. “It’s a socratic dialogue. There’s a man in prison…that’s Socrates…and he’s asking this other guy to teach him what it means to be pious.”_

_“What happens?”_

_“The guy he’s talking to can’t explain what it means, and no one learns anything.”_

_Jack frowned. “That’s it?” The girl nodded. “What happens to the guy in jail? Does he die?”_

_“That’s not what it’s about. It’s about how nothing happened. After all their talking and explaining and arguing, there wasn’t any point because Socrates didn’t learn anything.”_

_“That’s stupid.”_

_The girl flipped through the pages. “No, it’s not. It’s interesting.”_

_“But there’s no point.” Jack argued._

_“The point is that sometimes there’s no point in anything. And then you start to wonder what else doesn’t have a point.” She glanced up at him. “Does life have a point?”_

_“Are you asking me?” Jack asked uncomfortably. The girl nodded. “I don’t know. I guess if there’s something important enough to live for. If you want to live, then there’s a point.”_

_“Why would you want to live?” She was studying him, almost how a doctor would study a scientific specimen. Jack stepped back behind the desk and took the book from her._

_“I just said I don’t know.” He paused, thinking. What did other people like?“Money, I guess. Power.”_

_“What about love?” she pressed, and Jack scoffed._

_“Why are you asking me? You’re not even talking about your book anymore.”_

_“I know. My teacher said we could use it as inspiration, so I’m letting it inspire other ideas. I want to write about whether there’s a point in life, or if there isn’t."_

_“You think you can answer that question in two days?” he asked drily, scanning the book with the ancient library computer that took forever and a day to turn on._

_“No. But I’m going to give_ my _answer. It’s probably the wrong one, but it’s what I think.”_

_“And what do you think?” he asked, looking up to meet her eyes and catching a glimpse of the clock on the wall again. His shift was up. Hopefully her answer was quick._

_“I think there are lots of reasons to live. And I think love is the biggest motivator.”_

_He held out the slim volume. “You sound like a shrink or something.”_

_“Thanks.” She took the book and tucked it into her blazer pocket. “Thanks for going back there with me, too.”_

_He ignored her words, trying to avoid any long-winded speeches of gratitude.“Book’s got to be back in two weeks or there’s a fine.”_

_The moment she was gone, Jack left out the back door, making his was past the drug deal that was going on below a rusted fire escape. The sky was heavy and gray, and he could tell by the chill in the air that it would rain later. It was almost winter, and he wished he’d brought a coat. The puddles that gathered in the ruts of the pockmarked sidewalk were crusted over with a glaze of grey ice._

_He thought about the girl from Gotham Academy and felt a stab of guilt for not offering to walk her to a taxi or something. Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. It was her fault for coming all the way down here in her rich kid clothes. She was practically begging to be mugged. It wasn’t his problem._

_He walked up the cracked stone steps of his apartment building and into the dark lobby with grease stains on the walls and a hole in the ceiling. The narrow stairwell that led upstairs was thankfully unoccupied, so he wouldn’t have any confrontations with unfriendly neighbors today complaining about all the noise his dad made late at night when he was drunk and tearing up the apartment. Whenever the old lady who lived in the apartment underneath them hinted that he should say something to his father about the “ruckus” that went on well past midnight, Jack was always tempted to laugh. At least she wasn’t getting beaten up for being in the way, was she? Maybe if she could see the bruises on his arms and neck that he hid with long sleeved shirts she’d be a little more thankful for her lot in life. At least she wasn’t_ in _the room when Patrick Napier decided to use everything within arm’s reach as a punching bag._

_Their apartment was on the third floor, and by the way the door was hanging ajar on loose hinges, Jack knew his dad was home and probably drunk. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him, and crept toward his room._

_“What kept you so long, Jackie-boy?” The gruff voice that emerged from the torn armchair in the corner stopped Jack in his escape and he turned around reluctantly, shoving his hands into his pockets._

_“I was helping someone find a book. It took a few extra minutes.”_

_“I guess you must have forgotten I told you specifically to get home on time tonight so you could run the rent money down to those blood-sucking landlords. Did you forget that, Jack?” The man’s voice was dangerously calm, and Jack could almost feel the beating he was sure to get._

_He clenched his hands into fists from where they were buried in his pockets and nodded, staring at the bare wooden floor, the boards pitted and scratched. His father hadn’t even mentioned the rent money, but Jack knew better than to argue. He pulled his week’s check from his pocket and held it out. “I’ll go pay it now.”_

_“You do that, and pick me up a baseball bat on your way back. You don’t really need windows in your room, do you?”_

_Jack wondered if he was being serious. Was he really going to have have to last four winter months in an already drafty room sans windows? He hadn’t even done anything to aggravate the man. Seeing his expression, his father laughed, a mean-spirited guffaw as he leered at his son._

_“I’m only joking, kid. You shoulda seen your face.” His own turned angry. “What’re you still doing here? Get out.” Jack hurried out the door, closing it behind him as he narrowly escaped being clocked on the head by a half-empty beer can. He didn’t mind leaving to pay the rent. If it gave him a little more time away from his father, then it was a welcome relief._

_He wasn’t sure why, but as he trudged back down the stairs his mind suddenly turned to the girl at the library. How her eyes had sparkled when she talked about the meaning of life as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. Ever since the death of his mother, Jack hadn’t cared about any other living soul in the world. It wasn’t worth it, he told himself. No matter what people said, friends wouldn’t always be there for you, and family sucked. He’d avidly avoided becoming too close to anyone, not that it was an issue, wasting seven hours of the day in a dark, druggie-infested excuse for a library. The remaining hours he spent either locking himself in his room to draw in the few notebooks he’d found, or sitting on the rooftop of the apartment building, watching the city nightlife below. No danger of running into anyone else there._

_But somehow, even though she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, he couldn’t forget the girl. He wasn’t particularly fond of his job, but he found himself hoping she’d be back to return her book while he was there._

_Maybe he’d start working extra hours just to be safe._


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Georgia mentioned in this fic is a country south of the Russian border, not the state.

 

The sun had never felt so stiflingly hot as it did today. Standing on a roof of uncertain stability, Jack shifted uncomfortably. There was no shade up here, and with the added heat of his uniform and helmet, it felt like he was trapped in an oven, Hansel and Gretel style. Along with two other soldiers in the unit who passed as decent snipers when they were needed, he was waiting for any sort of hostile activity coming toward them as they packed up to move out. Aside from the faint buzz of activity that went on below, everything was silent. It was too hot to think, let along hold a conversation.

Jack shifted his gun from hand to hand. His eyes were heavy and it was hard to stay alert when he was keeping so still and silent. Even after reading Jeannie’s letter over and over again last night, he hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes. 

It had been like that for the past two weeks. Ever since Hyde’s death, Jack kept seeing the soldier in his dreams. Except instead of the cheerful, smiling friend he’d known, this Hyde was a staggering corpse, creeping up on Jack and latching onto his shoulder with a cold, dead hand. Whenever Jack turned to look at him, he saw a frozen grin plastered on the other soldier’s face, humorless and grotesque. If he tried to get away, Hyde would only cling on tighter, and then he’d start speaking. 

_“Don’t run away, Jack. Come with me. We have so much fun here, can’t you tell? So much fun that we never stop smiling. Don’t you see it, Jack?”_

Most nights, he woke up in a cold sweat after that. If he even let himself fall asleep in the first place.

It was better to lie awake than face those nightmares, but he hadn’t thought about how it would affect him while he was working. Now, standing on the roof in the blazing hot sun, Jack would have gladly accepted a whole night’s rest, even with those terrifying dreams that he couldn’t push from his own mind. His eyelids felt like lead.

He was so tired that when a voice sounded in the com link in his ear he couldn’t help a start of surprise. “Napier, do you read me?” the voice snapped, tinny and faint. Static hissed in the background. Jack pressed the button and replied,

“Yes, what’s up?”

“We’ve got some suspicious activity coming your way. I can’t tell who he is or what his game is, but I haven’t seen him before and I need eyes. Looks like a civilian, and he’s heading toward the outpost."

“Okay, I’ll keep an eye on him.” The figure in question came into view from around a corner. He was walking with heavy intention through the streets, his hands hidden in the pockets of the oversized trench coat he was wearing. His head was bowed and Jack couldn’t make out his face. He raised his gun silently, watching. There wasn’t a reason to shoot yet, but it was better to be safe. Especially since the town had been evacuated for weeks and this man was clearly not a soldier.

“He’s heading closer, Napier. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

“Roger that.” He walked soundlessly across the flat rooftop, stepping from one to the other. Fortunately, the buildings were close enough that he didn’t have to jump. He kept his gun trained on the man and strained to see his face. He was getting much closer to the outpost now, and Jack frowned. This was beginning to give off some lone-wolf terrorist vibes, he thought, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to shoot. The guy could just be passing through. Maybe he wasn’t even from the town and didn’t known he was in a war zone.

But when the man began picking up the pace, his hands going to whatever he was holding in his pockets, it was clear he wasn’t a random wanderer. He pulled a tumbleweed-esque mess of wires and cords from his pocket, and Jack’s finger tightened on the trigger. That was definitely a bomb, and if his purposeful strides were any indication, the man was planning on blasting the outpost into oblivion.

But for some reason even he couldn’t fathom, Jack didn’t shoot. He stood motionless, staring down the sights of his gun at the target. Every fiber of his body was screaming at him to just pull the trigger, kill the man before he completely demolished every bit of the unit, murdered every last one of his friends, but he couldn’t do it. 

Not in the back. He couldn’t. 

_You’re no soldier. You’re a cheap fraud._

He slipped down from the low roof and landed on the ground behind the man, raising his gun and aiming. 

“Hey.” The man froze.

The voice in the com link sounded furious. It grew louder, and the static screeched in his ear. “What are you doing, Napier? Where’d you go?” The sound of running footsteps came closer, and Jack knew the other two snipers were trying to figure out what his plan was. In all honesty, he was too. Did he even have a plan? It was his _job_ to kill unsuspecting threats, right? He shouldn’t have qualms about it. It shouldn’t even be a question.

Yet here he was. 

_Fraud._

The footsteps were coming closer, and voice in his ear was shouting now. “He’s got a bomb, Napier! Shoot him, _now!_ He’s going to target the outpost!”

The man turned around, and Jack’s eyes grew wide with disbelief. His breath hitched and caught in his throat as if someone was choking him. The barrel of his gun wavered and he stepped back. 

“Hyde…?”

The man tilted his head, watching the soldier with a wary eye. Jack stared, feeling his hands go numb. 

“You died.” he whispered, his voice hoarse. But it was him, it was Hyde standing there, looking just like he did in Jack’s nightmares. That hideous grin stretching across his corpse-pale face like a cavernous red gash, the way his eyes were the only thing that moved. It was Hyde, and he was standing there in plain sight. Dead as ever. Jack shook his head. 

“You _died.”_ he repeated dully, a cloud of confusion stifling his thoughts. The wind picked up, scattering a cloud of sand into his line of vision, but he didn’t blink, _couldn’t_ blink. His body felt frozen, even as the sun beat down, and he could only stare in disbelief and horrified certainty that this was the same man who had died fourteen days before, shot in the back of the head. 

_We have so much fun here, can’t you tell?_

“Napier, what are you doing? _Kill_ him! Do it now!” The voice was angry now, but Jack barely heard it. The man in front of him was still looking at him, backing away slowly. Jack felt the gun begin to slip from his grasp and he clutched it tighter, but he didn’t aim it anymore. Couldn’t the snipers see it was one of their own soldiers? Why did they want him to shoot? He couldn’t kill his friend.

The man gave Jack one final, bemused glance, then turned and barreled toward the outpost, lifting the arm that held the bomb. Jack stared after him, motionless. Sand stung his eyes and face and the sun burned down on him, but even that couldn’t break the cold numbness that had consumed his senses. The footsteps of the other snipers sounded like thunder as they raced past him, raising their own guns. 

He wanted to say something, to warn them that Hyde wasn’t doing anything wrong, to explain that he had come back and maybe they could fight together again, but he couldn’t say anything. His mouth was dry and he still felt frozen. He wondered if his heart was even beating.

Before he could even try to form a single word, the armored truck, filled with the first group of soldiers transferring to the new outpost, began rumbling by, right in the path of the running man. 

Jack watched silently as the man paused, then as the truck disappeared in a blinding burst of black smoke and angry red flames.

 

_\+ + + + + + + +_

 

Jack heard the tent flap slide open behind him, then flop shut. Heavy footsteps came closer, then something was slammed onto the table in front of him. He jumped at the sharp sound, his shoulders tensing even more. 

The general of the unit sat down on the other side of the table, lacing his fingers together and meeting Jack’s petrified stare. “Sit down, Napier.” The younger soldier obeyed wordlessly. The general pushed the thing on the table closer to him. “What is that?”

Jack glanced down. A clown mask grinned up at him, split down the middle. Cracks webbed their way through the cheap plastic. The mouth had been colored bright red, and dried flakes of paint dangled from the corners of the leering lips. The eye holes looked like staring black caverns, empty and bottomless. The general leaned back in his seat, surveying Jack with a stony eye. “What is it, Napier?”

Jack opened his mouth, trying to get the words out. But he couldn’t say anything. Like a film caught on a loop, the picture of the truck exploding in front of his eyes played through his head over and over again. Any words he wanted to speak caught in his throat, grating like sandpaper.

Twenty-seven soldiers. All killed in the blast. 

Dead, because of him.

The general cleared his throat. “Answer the question, soldier.”

Jack glanced up at him, his stomach tied in knots. “It’s a mask, sir.” The lines in the general’s face deepened, even though he wasn’t frowning. It made him look even older and more intimidating.

“Precisely. A mask. What I want to know is how you mistook this,” he picked up the grinning face, holding it out to Jack, “for a dead man who was killed two weeks before. Can you explain that to me, Napier?”

Jack heard the concealed anger beneath the man’s measured tone and cringed. The image of his companion curling his hand into a fist and smashing it into Jack’s face flashed through his mind, not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Usually when he heard that tone, something of that nature was bound to follow. The general continued holding the mask out to him, and with shaking hands Jack took it. The thin plastic seemed to burn into his skin, marking him with a brand of shame. He stared at it reluctantly. The eye holes stared back, empty and accusing all at once.

Mocking him.

“I can’t, sir. I’m sorry.”

“You mean you genuinely thought that the man was Hyde?” the general snapped, and Jack nodded, avoiding his gaze. His shoulders tensed involuntarily and he steeled himself for the blows he knew he deserved. Inexplicably, none fell. 

Nothing made any sense. How was he supposed to explain it? It seemed unbelievably idiotic now, but in the heat of the moment his mind had treacherously allowed him to think that the man was an actual living, breathing creature of his nightmares. How? Was he going crazy? What other explanation could be provided, that he had confused his dead friend with a terrorist in a cheap clown mask?

_There is no other explanation._

He swallowed, his throat still feeling like sandpaper. That thought was like a spider crawling into the light, and since he couldn’t kill it, the only thing to do was to let it scuttle back into the dark recesses of his mind, to be forgotten until circumstances demanded it creep out again.

_But is it true?_

“I did, sir. I had…I’d been having dreams…” He licked his lips, staring at the table, “…nightmares about Hyde coming back. Telling me…”

“I’m not your psychiatrist, Napier.” the general interrupted. “It doesn’t matter why you didn’t kill that man. You had been given orders, and for some reason you didn’t follow them.”

Jack twisted his hands together. “Sir, I…”

“I know what it’s like when someone dies, Napier. It sticks with you, and sometimes it gets to be too much.” The man took back the mask that sat on the table, then slammed his fist down on it. The plastic shattered, skidding across the table, and Jack flinched, hating himself even more for being so scared. “But this man was a terrorist. And you’re a soldier. We cannot have soldiers in this unit neglecting their duties because of a nightmare they had, do you understand me? You aren’t just a kid now. You’re working for me. If you aren’t prepared to do what’s necessary, then you can’t do this anymore.”

“I won’t let it happen again…I…” What could he say? What could he _possibly_ say to make up for what he had done? There was nothing. No excuse that would explain his failure.

The general’s expression softened the slightest amount, though the lines around his mouth remained unyielding. “I’m not discharging you, Napier. You’re a good soldier, and your shooting skills are too valuable to give up, but I can’t risk any more mistakes like that. So here is what I’m going to do with you. I’m in charge of organizing a unit to go to northern Georgia right now. Russians made some hostile moves on the citizens there the last few days, and I need some troops to send humanitarian aid. I’m sending you with the others for the next few weeks, and maybe you can get your head in the game before you come back. You think you can do it?”

Jack’s shoulders slumped in relief. He had come in expecting the worst, waiting for everything he’d worked for to tumble down around him and to be sent back in disgrace. Never in a million years would he have suspected anything like this could happen. “Yes, sir.”

“All right. I’ll give you the list of other men you’ll be going with, and who’s in charge. You’re moving out tomorrow at noon.” He stood up, and Jack followed suit. “Any questions?”

“Just that…” Jack looked down, staring at the broken remains of the mask that lay on the table. “That I’m very sorry for what happened.” The words rang hollow and empty. He cringed at how useless it was to say anything at all. “I know that doesn’t fix anything, but I’m sorry.”

“No, it doesn’t fix anything.” He strode past Jack, who followed him with his head hung low, shame burning at his face. “But there’s no point in dwelling on it anymore, is there? We’ve lost good men out there, and you can’t bring them back with an apology. Just get the job done and be the best soldier you can be. Can you do that?”

Jack nodded mutely, stepping out into the scalding daylight. He trudged across the camp, which had moved a few miles east. In a circle of impromptu tents made from bedrolls, under which other young soldiers huddled away from the heat of the sun, he saw Adams running toward him, curiosity written plainly all over his face. He was one of the few soldiers who’d believed Jack’s word about why he hadn’t shot the terrorist, and he’d known about the meeting with the general that morning.

“What’d he say? Did he lay it on hard? Is he letting you stay?”

“He’s sending me to Georgia to help with humanitarian aid.” Jack said, the impact of the words finally taking hold. He gave a short, incredulous laugh, more relief than humor. “Just south of Russia. Then I can come back.”

“Are you serious?” Adams’ eyes lit up with surprise. “How’d you convince him to let you do that?”

“I didn’t. He just told me.”

“Boy, are you lucky. You always end up on top, don’t you?”

Jack shrugged, running a hand through his short hair. He felt tired and drained. “I guess. I don’t know why he’s letting me stay.”

“He needs you. You’re the best sharpshooter we’ve got around here, when you actually shoot at the target.” Jack looked down and Adams’s mouth twisted in regret. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“I shouldn’t be here. He should have given me a dishonorable discharge. I didn’t follow orders, and look what happened.” He shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them from shaking. Adams offered him a cigarette from his seemingly endless supply, and Jack accepted gratefully. 

“You can’t help it if your mind’s playing tricks on you.” Adams argued. “War does that to a guy, you know? I had an uncle who was in the navy, and he kept seventeen locks on his front door because he thought the enemy was coming for him, even when he was back home and the fighting was done.”

Jack kicked a pile of sand, watching it swirl up then settle back down. “You think we’ll be like that? If we get back home?”

“What, paranoid loony birds? I hope not.” Adams laughed faintly, the idea being a little too real for his taste. Jack wished he hadn’t asked. “Anyway, Georgia, huh? Are they accepting volunteers to go?”

“Why? You want to come?” They began to walk back to the outpost, keeping their faces turned away from the sun.

“I think I really would go crazy if I have to live in this sand much longer. Besides, I’ve always wanted to see Russia.”

“Well, we’re not going to Russia. And I don’t know if you can volunteer.” Jack quickened his strides, not wanting to talk about it anymore. Adams hurried after him, cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth.

“What was it like? Did you really think it was him? I mean, I’ve heard of people hallucinating or whatever when they’re under a lot of pressure, but wow.”

Jack shivered, the gun strapped across his shoulders suddenly feeling much heavier, the heat of the sun much less warm. “It was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“It’s usually only psychos and other crazy people who mix up those things, y’know?” Adams mused, almost to himself. “So it must have been pretty weird for you to feel that way.”

Jack glanced at him sharply, his muscles tensing. “What do you mean?”

Adams glanced at his friend, whose brown eyes seemed to have gone black, and hurriedly tried to backtrack. “I didn’t mean _you’re_ like that. I know you’re not. Just that it must have been strange.”

“Yeah.” Jack studied the endless stretch of sand that greeted them as they kept walking. Adams didn’t know it, but he had just voiced the fears that Jack himself had been harboring for longer than he cared to admit. Somehow, hearing it said aloud made it all the more real. “It was strange.”


	5. Chapter Four

_When the girl walked in through the library doors a week and a half later, Jack almost admitted to himself that he was happy to see her. But no, he couldn’t think that. The girl was just here to return her book, that was all._

_She’d probably forgotten about him._

_He kept his head down when she passed him the book, and he stuck it on the metal cart with the chipped paint in silence. There was no way she’d remember him, and he wasn’t going to make a complete idiot of himself by saying anything._

_“Figured out the meaning of life yet?” His head shot up and their gazes met. The girl smiled and his face grew hot._

_“What?”_

_“The other week.” She leaned against the desk, resting her elbows on the dented linoleum surface. “I asked you what you think the meaning of life is. You have an answer yet?”_

_“You…remember me?” He could have bitten his tongue off for how desperate that sounded, but the girl didn’t seem to care._

_“Yeah, of course I do. You almost let me go back there by myself.” She nodded to the back of the library._

_“I did go with you, though.”_

_“You did.”_

_They were silent for a moment, watching each other. The girl finally moved, tossing her brown hair from her eyes. They were brown too, and sparkling. Like whisky or something. The stuff his dad brought home after Jack had been paid extra for the week. Expensive stuff. Just like her._

_“So? What’s your answer?”_

_Jack shook his head. “I haven’t really thought about it.”_

_“You should. I want to know what you think. Also, I want another book.”_

_He quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t have this one at your fancy school library either?”_

_She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t decided what I want yet. I was thinking you could help me pick one out.”_

_“Uh, I don’t do a lot of reading.” He’d never been fond of books, even when he was younger. Even working in a library hadn’t changed that._

_“Really? If I was drowning in books, I don’t think I could stop myself from reading them.” She spread her arms, gesturing at the stacks around them. “There’s so much here, all at your fingertips.”_

_He shrugged. “I don’t like books. I think authors are selfish.”_

_Her eyes widened in surprise. “What?”_

_“If you read a book, you don’t get to make up your own worlds. You have to use_ their _world, and believe what they believe. I don’t like being stuck like that.”_

_“But books let you imagine things!”_

_“Yeah, things about the world in the story. It’s restrictive.” The girl looked unconvinced, but she didn’t want to argue the point._

_“So you don’t have any suggestions? You don’t read anything here?”_

_“I’ve read some stuff.”_

_“Like what?”_

_He sighed. “I don’t know. Not fake stuff. The Communist Manifesto, Freud, things like that.”_

_Her eyebrows shot up. “Really? What school do you go to?”_

_His gaze faltered and dropped to the desktop again. “Nowhere. Not anymore. I have to work.” Great. Now she had more ammunition to fuel her imminent low opinion of him._

_She stared. “You don’t go to school and you’ve read things like that? That’s the sort of thing college kids read! My brother’s twenty-two and he couldn’t make it halfway through Marx.”_

_Jack hadn’t been expecting that reaction, especially from a girl who went to the nicest school in the city. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was an unenthusiastic,“Oh.”_

_“Besides, you can’t be any older than me. I haven’t even tried reading that stuff.”_

_“I’m nineteen.”_

_“So, only a year older. You’ve got to be really smart to read that stuff.”_

_He shifted back and forth on his feet, uncomfortable under her sudden shower of praise. “Yeah, I don't think so. I just read it when I'm bored. What sort of book do you want?"_

_She seemed to sense his discomfort, and went with his subject change. “I don’t really know. Have you read any fiction?”_

_“I guess. I’ve read that Orwell guy a few times. I don’t think that’s fiction though.”_

_“What, 1984? And Animal Farm? You don’t think that’s fiction?”_

_He shrugged. “Not forever, at least. The world’ll get there someday.”_

_“That’s a scary thought. Are you always so cynical?”_

_“I’m not cynical. Just realistic.”_

_She gave him a look that said she wasn’t sure what to think of that. “Well, I’ll take 1984. Where is it?”_

_“You sure you don’t want a copy from another library? Less likely to catch a disease that way.”_

_She laughed. “Nope. I want it from here.”_

_Jack shrugged. “Your funeral.” He led her to the science fiction section, which had become sparse from people forgetting to return books, or outright stealing them. “Should be here somewhere.” He turned to leave, although he really wanted to stay, and she grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back._

_“Don’t leave me here alone. I might get mugged.”_

_“That’s what you get, coming to the Narrows.” he retorted, but he didn’t leave. He waited for her to find the book, and didn’t realize he was staring until she turned around and tilted her head questioningly._

_“See something you like?”_

_He dragged his gaze away. “I told you, I’m not a reader.” She smirked, following him back to the desk and passing him the book. Jack got a strange sense of deja vu. They were both silent for a minute._

_“Have you heard of Chez Vous?” the girl asked unexpectedly, and Jack glanced up._

_“Nope.”_

_“It’s a restaurant in Midtown.” She paused, and Jack looked at her quizzically._

_“Okay?”_

_“Um, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to meet up there sometime. To talk about the book, or something.” she added hurriedly, almost apologetically .”I want to know what else you think about it."_

_Jack stared at her, uncomprehending. “You want me to go to a restaurant with you? Isn’t that like a date?”_

_“Yeah. That’s the point. I mean, if you want. You don’t have to.”_

_“You don’t even know me. How do you know I won’t try to kidnap you or something?”_ Nice going, idiot, _he berated himself,_ It’s like you want to scare her away.

_The girl didn’t look scared, fortunately. “You said it yourself when I came here last time. I know people who wouldn’t be too happy if I went missing.” She looked down. “I know I kind of rush these things. It’s okay if you don’t want to.”_

_“No, I didn’t say I don’t want to…” he said quickly. “It’s just…I wasn’t expecting you to…I mean, I was just surprised.”_ I wasn’t expecting a girl like you to even give me a second glance, _he wanted to say, but even he knew that wouldn’t work out well. “I don’t even know your name.”_

_She stuck out her hand. “Jeannie Sheridan. Like the hotel.”_

_“Jack Napier.” He took her hand, still surprised. “Like jackanapes. But what would your parents say if they knew you were doing that?”_

_“What, going somewhere with a boy they don’t know?” He nodded mutely. “I’ll explain it to them. They’ll probably want to meet you and all that, you know, but I’m sure they’ll like you.”_

_“Wait,” he interrupted, his head spinning, “what exactly are you saying? I don’t even know you. You don’t know me. Now you want your parents to meet me?”_

_Jeannie looked him square in the eye, putting her hands flat on the desk like a lawyer making a passionate case. Jack wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Or maybe that was just his nerves. Sometimes he laughed when he was nervous. His dad hated it. “Okay, let’s just scratch the date idea. It’s not a date. We’re just going to talk. You know, like a tutor and a student or something.”_

_Jack frowned. “But I’m not a…”_

_“I want to get to know you.” she said bluntly. “I think you’re interesting.”_

_“I’m not.” he assured her, with almost too much conviction. Why was he trying to discourage her? He was intrigued by her too…he’d never met such a spontaneous yet thoughtful girl, or any girl for that matter who was willing to talk to him for more than ten seconds. Maybe it was the prospect of having anything to do with Gotham’s elite that frightened him…he could almost taste the humiliation._

Stick to what you know.

_“You don’t have to if you don’t want. I can leave now and stay away from now on.” She spoke plainly, simply stating the facts, laying out the options. There was no guilt-tripping or pleading going on here. “If that’s what you want.”_

_“No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll go. It’s just…do you think your parents would be okay with it? I mean, your family’s probably really rich, and I’m gutter trash.” He hadn’t meant to say that, and it showed in the regretful expression on his face, but he couldn’t take it back. Jeannie almost glared at him._

_“You’re not. I don’t care where you’re from, okay? I don’t care.”_

_He crossed his arms defensively. “Yeah, but other people might.” How much more pathetic could he get? His only chance to make a friend, and he was completely bombing it so far._

_“I’ll make them understand.” she said confidently. A pile of neglected Alcoholics Anonymous flyers sat on the desk, and she took one, scribbling something on it with a nearby pencil and passing it to him. “There’s my number. Call me.”_

_“We don’t have a phone.” He took it anyway._

_“Okay. Then here’s my address.” She took another A.A. flyer, scratching away. “Meet me there tonight at six. Come to the front door.”_

_“I can’t come tonight.” What he meant was that he would have to have time to formulate some excuse to tell his father on why he wouldn’t be coming home straight after work, but Jeannie didn’t need to know that._

_“Tomorrow night, then?”_

_“I can do that, I think.” He felt breathless, like he was a skydiver standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to take the plunge. “I don’t have a car, though. Do you mind taking a taxi?”_ Is this how people plan dates _?_ List off all the things you don’t have until they realize just how dirt poor you are? _he thought sardonically._

_“I don’t mind.” She gave him the flyer. “I’ll explain everything to my parents, and I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She laughed at his scared expression. “Don’t be so petrified! I just want to talk to you. You know, like friends do.”_

_“Are we friends?” he ventured, and she scoffed._

_“You really think I’d spend an entire hour sitting in traffic to get down here and another going back if I didn’t want to be friends?” She picked up her book. “See you tomorrow night, Jack.”_

_He blinked, trying to process everything that was happening. “Uh, okay. I’ll…I guess I’ll see you then, too.”_

_She smiled at him before she left, and he thought about that smile for the entire rest of the day. That skydiver feeling stuck with him, but now he felt like he was still on the edge, and without a parachute._


	6. Chapter Five

“Some weather, huh? Feels like a sauna out here.” Adams pushed his cap back and brushed the back of his hand across his sweaty face. 

“Yeah, but no membership fees. You should be grateful.” Jack replied drily, studying the tattered grass that sprouted from the cracks in the oil-stained road they stood by. The trucks rumbling past them expelled billows of exhaust, which hung in the muggy air like city fog. He could feel the grime coating his face, and he sighed, trying to think of other things. “That’s ten trucks so far, and no disturbances. We should get them all in before nighttime.”

The sun had been setting for the past few hours, it seemed, drifting reluctantly out of sight behind the mountains that loomed up like jagged teeth on the horizon. The town they stood in, sparsely populated and half-demolished from the attack earlier in the week, was shrouded in early evening darkness, and the beams of flashlights and torches cut sharply through the dusky atmosphere. The lull of murmuring voices and the rattle of the trucks was occasionally punctuated with the sound of something backfiring or orders being shouted, but for the most part, the place was quiet. Not peaceful…there was too much tension and fear among the civilians to be peaceful…but quiet. It was a welcome relief to the constant sound of gunfire and missiles being shot, more welcome than Jack cared to admit. 

Maybe the general had been right…maybe he wasn’t cut out for war, and maybe this was his chance to realize it. But what could he do when it was over? When he was sent back? How much longer would this have to last? The six months he needed to serve in order to secure his chance at being funded for college were almost up, but he hadn’t even considered what would happen after that. It wasn’t as if he could simply get up and leave the army after that… _he’d_ been the one to enlist. It was a dilemma Jack hadn’t foreseen, and one that came to his mind more and more as time ticked by. Short of being maimed or killed, it wasn’t likely he was going home soon.

“If I’d have known I’d be escaping all that sand for this humidity, I’d have stayed put.” Adams continued, determined to pour out his complaints before they got to work. “I thought Russia was cold in the winter. Isn’t that their thing?”

“It’s not winter, and we're not in Russia. Does that solve the mystery?” Jack replied, checking boxes off of the paper on the clipboard he held, glancing up occasionally at the passing trucks and scribbling down notes. “You didn't have to come, you know."

“Yeah, but I thought it’d be a better deal than this. That’s how I got Ace and Matt to join us, you know. Advertising the change of weather, I mean. They’re gonna murder me for such a rip-off.”

“You should be grateful. It’ll put you out of your misery.” 

Adams plucked a handful of grass from the ground and meticulously tore each blade apart, sighing. “Fair point. I’ll suggest it when we’re back at the camp.”

Jack stepped out into the road, avoiding a gasoline-streaked puddle that brimmed up from one of the many potholes. “That’s the last of the trucks. Let’s go.” The town was less than a three-minute walk away, but their new supervisor was known for his strict policy of being on time, and Jack didn’t want to risk any more slip-ups. 

_Oh, right, like letting a truckload of soldiers blow up in front of you? A little slip-up like that, huh? No big deal, of course. Just a simple mistake._

Since that day, that little accusatory voice in his head had grown louder, harder to ignore. Sometimes he almost genuinely thought that it wasn’t just inside his own mind, a product of his own thoughts.

_Yeah, just like Adams said. A paranoid looney bird. Isn’t that how they all turn out? How_ we _all turn out?_

“Shut up.” he muttered, realizing too late he’d spoken aloud. Adams glanced over at him.

“Huh?”

Jack shook his head, staring at the ground. Maybe it was the humidity getting to him. Or maybe he was just tired. Not thinking straight. “Nothing.” 

“Okay.” They trudged on in silence. The sky had grown darker.

The unforeseen attack had left the town looking just like any other war zone area Jack had seen so far, only this time brimming with people. Usually he had only seen half or full-evacuated villages, eerie and abandoned without their inhabitants. But this place teemed with disoriented, terrified civilians. Jack had known that, of course…why else would he be bringing supplies to a town that had been attacked? But facing the reality of the situation; the women and children that stared at him with hollow eyes, the unfiltered cries of people he didn't know who had lost other people he didn't know…it was overwhelming. And not in a good way. 

Jack had no issue with protecting people; that was why he was here, after all. But he preferred to do it in as distant a way as possible. Guarding a town’s borders while they evacuated or fighting off insurgents… _that,_ he could do. But he had never been comfortable around emotional people, and taking charge of an entire village that mourned the loss of almost half their population? That was nothing short of a nightmare. He knew it was hypocritical and selfish…these people had lost more than he could even imagine (he tried to think of how he would feel if he lost Jeannie, and the thought was so horrific he shut it from his mind instantly). But all he could think, watching the nameless crowds scurry back and forth, heads bowed and eyes misty with grief and shock, was that they were _weak_. Yes, they had lost, but what could be done now? Crying over it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

He tried not to think those thoughts…tried to feel sympathy, to feel _any_ sort of connection, but he couldn’t. The only thing he could do was pretend he didn’t feel that way. Pretend he cared about them and was truly motivated to help.

_Not just plodding through a mundane job so you can get back to scraping together a future for yourself. For her and you._

If he couldn’t sympathize, at least he could find other ways to motivate himself.

The trucks, black and formless in the growing darkness, were lined up diagonally on the edge of the town. Skirting the crowds that had gathered, Jack made his way toward them. _At least,_ he told himself, _unpacking first-aid kits from moving vans beats shooting guys in the back of the head._

White lettering lined the sides of the trucks, the smaller print reading “Humanitarian Aid Transport: United States.” Above it, emblazoned in much larger letters, the abbreviation “H.A.” reflected the faint moonlight and shone in the darkness, the only glimpse of illumination in that particularly dark corner of the village. Jack paused to take in the sight, and an involuntary shudder ran through his frame. He knew it was only by chance he had noticed what he was seeing, that it was just an innocent optical illusion. Nothing more. 

He tried to drag his gaze away. _It's just your brain, looking for some sort of twisted irony. Ignore it._ Arranged impeccably straight, tilted slightly to the side so the tires wouldn't sink too deeply into the mud, the line of trucks stretched out of view, the letters on the sides shining, bone-white, in the glare of the moon. 

_H.A. H.A. H.A. H.A. H.A._

Jack licked his lips, staring, trying to force away the uneasy feeling that had crept through him like a paralyzing virus. The chilling scene sat in a silent tableau, inanimate and unaware of the bystander that had fallen victim of its harsh irony. 

Disembodied laughter rang in his ears, jarring and harsh, like the tolling of funeral bells, and Jack knew it wasn’t real. But it _felt_ real, and it sounded real, and for a moment he almost believed it. Laughing at the plight of the townspeople, reveling in the destruction that had torn apart their lives.

Laughing because…

Because what? Why?

The letters wavered in front of him, or maybe that was just his eyes.

_Why not?_

Jack shook his head, trying to clear it. The thought meant nothing. Everyone had thoughts like that, he told himself, brought on by the most random of situations. He was probably tired, feeling guilty for not being more empathetic toward the victims of the attack. That was all. 

As reassuring as that sounded, Jack’s nerves were on edge enough that, when a hand landed on his shoulder, his instinct was to pull out the pistol at his side and level it at the intruder. 

“Woah, take it easy, it’s just me.” Adams stood behind him, hands flying up submissively. Jack drew in a long breath, putting the gun away.

“Don’t do that again.”

“Well, sorry, I didn’t know I’d disturbed your private meditation session.” Adams retorted sarcastically, scraping mud off of one shoe with the other. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

“I was going to help unload the trucks.” Jack didn’t want to see those trucks, with that soundless laughter staring at him in the darkness, ever again, but what else was there to do? He started toward the nearest one, rolling up the sleeves of his uniform, and Adams hurried after him.

“We’re not doing that until tomorrow, remember? They’ve got enough in the town for the night, and if we do it now, we’ll be up till morning. You’d better find some place to sleep, or else you won’t be any help when we do start unloading.”

“I’m not tired.” Strangely, he wasn’t. The amount of sleep he had been getting had tapered off to almost nothing, but it had stopped bothering him lately. Maybe because he had other things to worry about.

_Like how you killed those men._

He shook his head. _I didn’t kill them. Not me. I just didn’t stop him in time._

_It’s your fault they died. That makes you a killer. Do I have to spell it out for you?_

“Want to play cards, then?” Adams asked, oblivious to the thoughts running through his friend’s head. “You, me, the other two guys from our unit? How about it?”

Jack shrugged. “Okay.” He was the only one who still had a complete deck of cards, and it was a better prospect than sitting up all night outside the makeshift outpost, trying to see the stars.He followed Adams back toward the heart of the town, trying to forget the image that had flashed through his mind. Telling himself it was just a wild product of imagination.

The letters on the trucks grew fainter as a cloud passed over the moon, but Jack didn’t look back to see them fade.

 

\+ + + + + + +

_Jack stood nervously on the doorstep of the house, address in hand. “House” didn’t really do justice to the place that looked almost as big as the entire apartment building he lived in. It was almost impossible to believe that two such different homes could even exist within the same city limits…it was a surreal dichotomy he could barely grasp. Sure, he had seen nice houses in Gotham. When he had still been in school, he’d sometimes wander uptown and look in the front window of the Gotham Gazette office, where reporters and editors scurried around in a haze of cigarette smoke and papers, rushing to finish the last few articles of the evening paper before it hit the printing press. The houses there had been just as big, but Jack had never actually known anyone who lived in one._

_Now, through some strange twist of fate, he did._

_He’d flagged a cab in the neighborhood, and the man had pulled his car up to the curb, where he was now watching Jack with an impatient scowl. “Don’t stand there all day, kid! I’ve got places to be!” he shouted, and Jack forced a smile, nodding that he heard the warning._

_He reached up to ring the doorbell, and his hand faltered, wishing he’d asked someone the time on his way up here. He hadn’t wanted to spend cash on two taxis, so he’d walked. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a watch, so he had no idea if he was early or not. Did rich people like if you arrived early, or was that bad? He couldn’t remember. Didn’t know in the first place._

_As if it had heard his inner conflict, the Gotham bell tower, a weathered structure that loomed up over the city hall, almost as tall as the neighboring Wayne Enterprises offices, chimed five times. Jack smiled in relief and knocked on the door._

_Footsteps approached on the other side, and the door swung open. Jack was faced with a man who looked like he’d stepped off the front page of a magazine called “Millionaires, Inc.” Jack had no idea if such a magazine existed, but if it did, this guy would be in it. He’d heard his dad talk about guys like this; “silver-fox”, he called it. He looked like he could talk himself out of the worst of situations and come out on top. The few lines on his face were probably from him smiling for the camera at a press conference._

_If only he was smiling now._

_Any sort of charisma this man possessed was tainted with the cold look in his eyes as he raised an eyebrow at Jack. “May I help you?” His voice, smooth as his appearance, held thinly veiled disdain._

_“Are you Mr. Sheridan?” Jack asked, locking eye contact with the man. From the guy’s intense stare, Jack could tell he was used to intimidating people with it._

_It made him all the more determined to not be._

_“Who are you?” the man responded, looking the intruder up and down._

_“My name’s Jack Napier. Your daughter Jeannie…”_

_“You’re the one my daughter was talking about?” he interrupted, incredulity creeping into his voice. Jack tried to assume the best. Maybe the man was just being wary._

Maybe, _he thought sarcastically,_ you’re being an overly optimistic idiot.

_“Yes.”_

_The man turned his head and gave Jack a sidelong glance. “You said your last name is…”_

_“Napier.”_

_“Any relation to Patrick Napier?” the man asked sharply, and Jack’s mouth went dry. How did this man know who his father was? If he knew his name, then he couldn’t know anything good. And if he considered Jack any reflection of his father’s character…well, that would be his last scrap of hope down the drain._

_For a moment, he considered lying, but decided against it. He was a good liar, but for some reason he wanted to be honest toward this man. Maybe show him that he could still be okay no matter who his father was._

_“I’m his son.” Despite his best efforts, his gaze dropped to the marble floor. He saw the man’s polished leather shoes shift, and he wished he’d never come. Why had he ever thought this could have any sort of positive outcome? Any outcome other than abject humiliation?_

_“Jack?” A girl’s voice cut through the terse silence, and his head shot up. Jeannie appeared behind her father, glancing from one to the other tentatively. “I didn’t realize you were here.”_

_“You’re friends with this boy?” Her father’s voice was icy, and Jack chewed on his bottom lip, watching them both, his stomach tied in knots. “Do you know who his father is?”_

_“Be nice to him, Dad.” She crossed her arms. “Don’t scare him away.”_

_“I’m not scared.” Jack muttered, but neither one heard him. The man mirrored his daughter’s movement, his own arms folding over his chest._ Don’t go rumpling your million-dollar suit for little old me, _Jack thought sarcastically._

_Mr. Sheridan’s gaze fell on him again. “Do you know where I work, Jack?”_

_“No.”_

_“Gotham General Hospital. It’s the least I can do for this city, broken as it is.” His tone implied that was entirely Jack’s fault.“I’m a doctor, and the ER is my usual office.”_

_“Okay.” Jack could already tell the story wasn’t going to end well, but he couldn’t just turn and walk off. Not if he ever wanted to see Jeannie again._

_“Seven years ago, I had a patient who was being treated for aggravated assault after he got involved in a drug deal. Beat up really badly, this guy was. He stayed in the hospital for three weeks. I never forgot the name of the guy who did that to him.”_

_“I’m not like my father.” Jack dragged his gaze back up to meet the man’s eyes, already knowing where this was going. “I’m not.”_

_“Patrick Napier spent five years in Blackgate Penitentiary before coming back to Gotham. Or rather, he was supposed to, but they let him out early for good behavior. One year was all he served for nearly killing that man. You know what my patient told me?”_

_Jack shook his head. Jeannie was watching them silently, anger shining like fire in her eyes. He hoped it wasn’t at him. Her father sighed. “He told me, Jack, that your father enjoyed beating him up. That he laughed like a madman as he pounded him to a pulp with a two-by-four, then left him to bleed out in an alley.”_

_Jack opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He closed his eyes, wishing he could be anywhere but here._

_“Now, imagine you had a daughter you loved very much, Jack. Imagine she grew into a beautiful young woman who wouldn’t always make the best decisions when it came to boys in her life.”_

_“Dad…”_

_“Imagine she found a kid she liked and they both thought they could make it work. Only, there was a little problem.” The man’s tone had become conversational, and somehow that bothered Jack even more than his previous icy demeanor. “The boy wasn’t exactly what the girl thought he was. He had no means of creating a serious relationship with her, no way to make a name for himself, and certainly no way to support a family of his own. And then there’s his past. He’s a high school drop out, you know? What did he do for that to happen? And to top it all off, why, his own father is a former convict sent to prison for a felony that was pretty darn close to murder.”_

_The man was still looking at Jack, now with a half-disgusted, half-pitying expression. “Imagine that, Jack. What would you do? Of course you wouldn’t want your daughter to continue a relationship with this boy, would you? You would want better things for her. And if the boy was smart, he would too. Don’t you think?”_

_“Dad, stop! You’re being too hard on him!”_

_Jack’s eyes flickered to Jeannie, and he couldn’t help but feel slightly resentful toward her. He wasn’t quite sure why, but maybe it was the way she kept trying to defend him, as if he couldn’t do it himself. “I think I wouldn’t make as many assumptions.”_

_“Then you could lose her to a lifetime of regret and disappointment, Jack.”_

_“I know.”_ It doesn’t have to be like that, _he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. Jeannie looked at him pleadingly, and his irritation grew. She wasn’t helping his case, was she? Playing the wilting maiden part? Her dad was already convinced he was a serial killer in the making. She didn’t need to close his case by being naive._

_“What I’m saying is that I’m forbidding Jeannie to associate with you anymore. I didn’t know she was doing it in the first place, and it will not continue.”_

_Jeannie’s head shot up. “You can’t do that! You haven’t even given him a chance!”_

_“I_ can _do that, in fact. And Jack, if I see you around her again, I don’t think I need to give you a specific warning on what will happen. Use your imagination.”_

_“Mr. Sheridan…”_

_“If you could have seen my patient, covered in blood and half-dead from being beaten within an inch of his life, you’d understand my concern.” he said placidly. In the following silence, the taxi driver behind them blared the horn for a full five seconds, then leaned out the window, scowl still in place._

_“You gonna stand there all year, kid? Either get in or I’m leaving!” Clenching his hands into fists, Jack began to walk away. Before he left the front steps, he turned back to the man standing in the doorway._

_“I did see him.” he said quietly. “I saw him as my dad was hitting him. And I saw him lying there, choking on his own blood. I saw a lot of things like that.” Jeannie was staring at him, horror and surprise in her expression. But not at him. At least, he hoped it wasn’t at him. “I’m not going to be like my dad.”_

_“Ten seconds, kid! Then I’m out of here!”_

_“Goodbye, Jack.” Dr. Sheridan leaned against the doorframe, Jeannie standing helplessly behind him. “Don't let me catch you around here again.”_

_Jack didn’t reply. The taxi driver, true to his word, had shifted his beaten-up car into gear and rumbled off in a cloud of exhaust. That meant Jack would have to walk back home._

_He didn’t mind._

 


	7. Chapter Six

The crickets inhabiting the nearby woods screeched an ugly melody late into the night. Jack stared at the stained canvas tent roof above him, wide awake. His eyes felt gritty and dry, like someone had rubbed sand into them, and every bone in his body was begging him to rest. But he couldn’t…not when his mind was racing like a train about to jump the rails. His thoughts spilled over one another, shrouded in a haze of exhaustion, but others were as sharp and clear-cut as a dagger. In his mind’s eye he could see the man in the mask, right before he had charged at the truck and blown it to hell. He could see the disappointment in the general’s face, and then that disappointment turned to death and it wasn't the general’s eyes but Charlie Hyde’s, glowing in his still, grinning face. And then the dead man was there, standing in front of him. His tattered clothes hung off his gaunt frame in rags, fluttering in the wind that Jack couldn’t feel.

This time he wasn’t alone. The men that stood behind him stared at Jack with their cold, dead eyes, blood and sweat streaked across their pallid faces. He recognized some of them as they leered at him, pulsing in and out of focus. They were all here…every single man that had died that day…

… _that I killed…_

They were smiling. Smiling like Hyde; stationary, repulsive grins slicing through their wax-figurine faces. And coming closer. Closer and closer and so, so silent. Silence so heavy he felt like his eardrums would give out.

_Silent as the grave._

But they hadn’t been buried in graves, because no one could piece the bodies back together after what had happened to them. The sand had swept over them as the days passed, shrouding their mangled corpses in a sorry excuse for a funeral.

“You’re not going to run away this time, are you?” Hyde’s voice was grating, flat. Like a nail jittering across cardboard. Jack couldn’t tell if his mouth moved from that hideous rictus, even as he spoke. 

“Leave me alone.” he whispered, barely able to speak the words. Hyde laughed, or at least _someone_ laughed, high and delirious with humor. 

“Now that’s rich, Jack. You let these men die, and you won’t even grant them two minutes of your time? With what you did, you owe them a lifetime of regret.”

“You think I’m not already giving them that?” He tried to shout the words, but they caught in his throat and came out as a throttled gasp. Hyde shrugged, grinning.

“We don't want anything from you. Only…" He extended a dead hand, crusted with dried blood and dirt, “consider coming with us. We really do have the best time here.”

Jack flinched away from the reaching hand. “Here? Where’s here?”

The laugher echoed and reverberated around him, and Hyde’s grin widened, if that was possible. This time it wasn’t his voice that spoke, but another, equally familiar. “Inside your head, Jackie boy.”

Jack’s eyes flew open and he sat up, panting. His chest felt constricted, as if his rib cage was tightening around his lungs like a vise. The crickets were still sounding their harsh music, and the tent’s only occupants were the few sleeping figures of the rest of the unit. Breathing. Alive.

_It was all in your head. Not real. Just a dream._

He lay back down with a stifled sigh, pressing the backs of his hands to his eyes until colors exploded across his eyelids and his head began to hurt. Someone nearby rolled over, muttering in their sleep, then the tent was quiet again. But not quiet in that same cold, dead way it had been before. Jack gritted his teeth and tried to lose his thoughts to the oblivion of sleep.

_God, what is happening to me?_

He would have had time to contemplate that question further if the gunfire outside hadn’t begun.

 

\+ + + + + + + 

 

Shocked, terrified screams flooded the air, accompanied by the deafening staccato of discharged bullets. Every inhabitant of the tent shot up at the same time, like one of the Saturday morning cartoons the landlord in his old apartment used to turn on in the lobby for the tenants’ kids, and Jack thought it would have been funny under different circumstances. Someone began barking orders above the stampede to grab whatever gun or weapon was in arm’s reach, and Jack strained to hear it.

“There’s been an attack on the town…get out here and circle up around the civilians! Try to get them out of here before anyone gets hurt!”

Jack finally found a weapon…it was only a handgun, one that looked alarmingly small when he considered the sounds of fighting going on outside. But it was that or nothing. He usually carried a knife with him, but it had been kicked out of arm’s reach from where he’d stored it on the floor for the night, and there was no hope of finding it now. 

He pushed aside the tent flap and was greeted by a wall of fire. His eyes widened and he sidestepped the flames, which were shooting up from almost every house he could see, sparks dancing lithely across the road. The impenetrable black smoke was blinding _(just like when that truck was blown up,_ his mind taunted him) but when the wind swept through he could see the blurred figures of his fellow soldiers, grappling with whoever they were up against.

He heard running footsteps behind him and turned, catching a glimpse of green amidst the red of the flames. The man’s grizzled face was unfamiliar, definitely not someone from the unit, and Jack raised the pistol, aiming it at the stranger’s head. “Who are you?”

The words the man spoke sounded Russian…whatever language, it wasn’t English, and certainly not one Jack was familiar with…and he took a step forward. Jack stepped back, keeping his gun level.

“I asked you a question!” His voice rose as something exploded behind him, and the man shrugged, almost nonchalantly. Jack frowned, the smoke stinging his eyes. “I’m giving you three seconds to answer me.” The man raised an eyebrow, then pointed to something behind Jack, who turned his head just in time to see a much larger figure rushing toward him. Before he could react, a brawny arm wrapped itself around his neck, cutting off his air. Hyde flashed before his eyes, and he gasped like he had when waking up from that terrible nightmare. He struggled against the powerful grip, clawing furiously at the man’s giant hands.

“Going somewhere, are you?” The voice in his ear was heavily accented, but distinctly English. Jack bit down on the arm, and its owner leapt back with a snarl of pain. Jack looked around for his gun, which he had dropped, but the smoke was too thick to see much of anything. He turned to run back to the tent, knowing there were more weapons there. Before he could move, something latched around his ankle in an unbreakable grip and he was pulled down, in danger of being trampled beneath the feet of the soldiers fighting around him. The ground shook from the chaos around him, and the running steps sounded like a heartbeat. Kicking whatever had grabbed him away, Jack staggered upright and raced toward the tent, drawing a sigh of relief when he half-fell through the entryway, tangled in the ties of the door flaps. He reached for a long-range rifle…maybe with the light of the fire, he could see well enough to pick some off from a distance…but before his shaking fingers closed around it, a figure materialized from the darkness.

“Hands up, American boy.” it said in that same accented voice. Jack froze, watching the figure carefully as it came closer. He was breathing heavily, each intake of air searing his throat from the smoke, and blinked quickly to clear his clouded vision. The figure was a man, dressed in what Jack now recognized as a Russian military uniform, battered and worn from years of use, one sleeve now stained with fresh blood. The man held the pistol Jack had dropped casually in his hand, the barrel pointed at the floor. Jack eyed it, wondering how much of a chance he would take on the rifle being loaded and him making a dive for it.

“You and a few of your friends are coming back with us.” the man continued, almost conversationally. Friendly, even. Jack didn’t move, only stared at the man warily. “If you don’t fight, it will be easier for you.”

“What if I say no?” Jack steeled himself to grab for the gun, praying fervently to anything he could think of that it was loaded. The man smiled. 

“I like you. You would bargain for your life while your friends are slaughtered outside like cattle. Not a common trait in a soldier. None of that hotheaded bravery.”

The noise outside the tent suddenly seemed much louder, and Jack felt a stab of guilt. But if playing along with this lunatic would win him his life, then what else was there to do? 

“It’s not like I can save them anyway.” he said, trying not to look at the gun. Even that could give him away. The man nodded admiringly.

“Good point, my friend.” He raised the pistol. “Go on, take it.”

Jack’s eyes widened in surprise and he felt his hands go numb. “What?”

The man pointed at the rifle, smiling. “Your weapon. Take it, and see what you can do. I know you were going to.”

Jack stared, uncertain, then grabbed at the rifle, his hands shaking. The pistol went off and he felt a sudden sharp shock in his left shoulder that raced down his arm in tendrils of white-hot pain. He exhaled sharply, the figure in front of him blurring in and out of focus. For a moment he wavered, trying weakly to grasp at the gun that was so close yet seemed miles away, then something hit him from behind and the world suddenly fell out of focus again before dissolving into darkness.

 

\+ + + + + + 

 

The sound of water dripping reminded him of the basement of his dad’s apartment building. The landlord’s office was in the basement, and Jack had to weave his way through the jungle of water pipes and electrical wires that entangled themselves into an unsolvable knot of steel and boxes in order to bring the rent money to the little mailbox outside the office door marked “Bills.” When he was younger, Jack had been deathly afraid of the basement, and would have committed murder rather than brave that uncharted maze. As he grew older, he had become fascinated with its twists and turns, admiring how something that seemed so directionless and confusing could line up so neatly in the end. Some water pipe or another was always leaking, and Jack came to associate that sound with that dark room he had once despised.

But it couldn’t have been that sound he was hearing, because that building was gone and his father was dead.

Slowly opening his eyes, releasing a torrent of pain raging through his head that almost caused him to pass out again, Jack was met with darkness. As his sight adjusted slowly to the dusky atmosphere, he noticed a guttering oil lamp in the corner, which illuminated several hunched figures cluttered together. So he wasn’t alone. He tried to remember what had happened and why he was here, but he couldn’t formulate even one clear thought. His head was pounding like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer, and every part of his body felt too heavy to move, weighed down in a stupor of exhaustion.

Hyde’s grinning, dead-eyed face flashed in front of him and he scrambled upright, stifling a cry of terror. Then someone else was there, face unrecognizable in the darkness, whispering hoarsely.

“Hey, Napier, you’re up. Gosh, buddy, I was worried about you.” 

Jack stared at the owner of the voice as it came into focus, trying to sort out his thoughts. “Adams?” he whispered back, not because he wanted to, but because his throat was so dry that normal speaking was impossible.

“Yeah, it’s me. Cantrell and Burns are here, too.” He nodded at the figures near the light. Jack followed his gaze, frowning.

“What happened?” He became dimly aware of a quickly blossoming pain in his shoulder and glanced at it. 

One of the guys got you with your own gun. I patched it up for you…they didn’t care when they dumped us in here. I thought they would, considering…”

He stared at the torn, blood-stained uniform sleeve clumsily wrapped across his shoulder and grimaced. “Wait, what guys? The ones from the village?” He struggled to sit up, but his arm gave out underneath him and involuntary tears of pain stung his eyes like pinpricks. Adams helped him lean back against the wall, and Jack pressed the side of his face to the gritty, cool stone. 

“Yeah, the ones who attacked us. They’re Russians, man, and they’ve got all four of us here. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the unit. But the village was burning when we left and it didn’t look good.” 

Jack was still trying to figure out what was going on. His head was spinning and everything he could remember was piecing itself back together with infuriating slowness. “So where are we?” His voice was starting to come back, but he didn’t raise it above a whisper. The place was too quiet to not have anyone listening in.  
“No idea. We haven’t been here long, I can tell you that. But I think it's underground. See those?” He pointed at three narrow slits high up on the concrete walls. “Windows. And when they're up that high, it usually means..."

“Yeah, that the place is underground. Nice going, Sherlock.” Jack pressed the hand of his functioning arm to the back of his head, his fingers catching in blood-matted hair. “So they took us here? Why?” 

“Ransom, I guess. They wanted to know where the rest of the unit’s stationed, but we all said we don’t know. It’s true, cause we weren’t given the coordinates of where they were heading next without us.”

“So what are they going to do with us?” 

Adams shrugged. “Wait until someone comes to check up on the town and see if they’re Americans, I guess. Then try to bargain for our lives.”

“And if no one comes?”

“Then we’re target practice."

Jack closed his eyes again, the constantly-growing headache pounding into his skull. “No one but us is here? Us four?”

“Yeah.”

The other two remaining soldiers, who had joined the same week as Jack, had come over. Ace Cantrell, whom Jack had played poker with on many occasions, and his companion Matt Burns, another of his friends and one of the medics that had volunteered to come on the humanitarian aid mission. They now sat cross-legged on the rough floor, an unpleasant combination of dirt and gravel, next to Adams. Cantrell had a hand pressed to his side, and blood slowly leaked through his fingers. Jack glanced at him questioningly, and he shrugged tiredly, his eyes hollow.

“Some guy got me with a knife. Didn’t even notice it until we got here.” 

All four were quiet for a long moment, listening to the water dripping in the distance, until Burns broke the silence.

“So what now?”

“Wait and hope they’ll have a change of heart and let us go.” Adams said colorlessly. 

Jack hadn’t heard such forced laughter in a long time.

 

 


	8. Chapter Seven

_“Thanks for the book.”_

_Jack’s head jerked up, his stare fixing on Jeannie, who stood on the other side of the desk. She held out the book in her hands and he took it numbly, still staring._

_“You came back?”_

_She leaned against the desk. “Of course I did, idiot. I had to return that.”_

_“Oh. Yeah.” He ducked his head, studying the ground._

_“And I wanted to see you, of course.”_

_“You what?” He clutched the book nervously, frozen to the spot. Jeannie gave him an apologetic half-smile._

_“You think I’d let me dad scare you away forever? I don’t make friends for the fun of it, Jack. If I call you my friend, that’ s because I care. I know that sounds like something from a rom-com, but it’s true.”_

_“I don’t watch rom-coms.” He gritted his teeth. Why did he have to say the stupidest things around her?_

_“Good. They’re garbage. Look, if you’d rather cut this off before anything else, then do it. I don’t want you to feel forced into this.”_

_“You mean…being friends?” he asked, confused. She nodded._

_“Yes. If you’d rather not…”_

_“No! No, I want to. But your dad…”_

_“Don’t worry about him. He shouldn’t have said those things to you. I know you’re not like that.”_

_“But you don’t. You don’t even know me.” Great. Like that would help his case._

_“Then look me in the eyes and tell me the truth. Tell me who you are, and I’ll know if you’re lying or not.”_

_He stared down at the floor again, the words slow to come. “I don’t know who I am.”_

_“Look at me and say it.”_

_He did. “I don’t know who I am.” Shame burned in him. It was his truth, but it wasn’t one he wanted. Not one he wanted her to know. He hadn't ever known, and he doubted if he ever would. There was nothing special about him, nothing he understood about himself._

_They were silent for a moment. Her mouth twisted to the side, her brown eyes serious as they gazed into his. “You really mean that.”_

_“Why wouldn’t I?”_

_“But you’re not a killer.”_

_He flinched. “No.”_ Not yet. _Living in the Narrows wasn’t exactly the perfect place to cultivate nonviolent tendencies._

_Jeannie nodded. “And you’re not going to hurt me?”_

_“No!”_

_“Okay. And that’s the truth.” She leaned back, satisfied. “I can tell. I know when people are lying to me, and you’re not lying.” Jack watched her intently, still holding the book with nerveless fingers._

_“You shouldn’t keep coming back here. What if your dad found out?”_

_“Then he’ll be mad. He’ll probably forbid me from seeing you again. Probably make me stay in the house all summer. I’d do it, then I’d come see you again.”_

_“Why?” He frowned, trying to understand. “That doesn’t make any sense.”_

_She laughed disbelievingly. “You still don’t get it?”_

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_Jeannie looked away as if to conceal disappointment. “Okay. Well, here’s the thing.” Her fingers fluttered nervously against the desk top. “There’s something about you, Jack, that I don’t understand. And I want to understand it. That’s why I would keep coming back.”_

_“What don’t you understand? You don’t even know anything about me.”_

_“I know you are hiding from opportunity. You practically said it yourself. You don’t even think it’s a challenge trying to understand some of the toughest books out there, but you dropped out of school. Unless someone stops you, you’ll spend the rest of your life behind this desk, filing away books and trying to keep junkies from setting off smoke detectors. That’s what I don’t understand.”_

_Jack glanced at her calmly, but there was something dangerous about it. Jeannie saw it, something dark and frightening behind his eyes that burned like a defiant fire. She wasn't sure if she was scared or not, but she knew she was seeing a side of the boy that not many people had seen before, however brief of a glimpse she got. His voice was equally calm as he spoke, but not devoid of a cold edge. “We’ve spoken a total of three times, and you think you have my life figured out for me? You think you can analyze my reason for existence? I keep telling you, you don’t know me.” His tone never changed, never grew louder, but that darkness behind his eyes continued to bore into her. “You know nothing about me.”_

_“But I want to!” she argued against her better judgement. “And you said you wanted to be my friend! Why are you pushing me away?”_

_Without warning, a picture flashed through Jack’s head; a bottle breaking, the shards ricocheting into a fireworks burst of splintered glass._

_Splintered glass skittering across the floor, gleaming with a dull, ugly sheen._

_Was it glass or bone?_

_There was a voice now, and it was screaming unintelligibly, crying for help. Before he could push the memory away, Jack saw himself, years younger, watching the scene unfold from the doorway, where he stood rooted to the ground._

You could have stopped him. 

_But he hadn’t, and he couldn’t risk that again._

You know why you’re pushing her away.

_“I don’t know what else to do.” he said defeatedly, in a rare moment of candidness. “You don’t know what it’s like around here. I don’t want you getting in trouble that I can’t fix.”_

_“Jack, stop talking to me like I don’t know anything. I can take care of myself.”_

_“Sorry, but you really can’t.” he replied, a little more abrasively than he had intended. Jeannie’s face flushed with anger, and Jack shrugged, trying to hide the very real worry that was threatening to show in his expression. Ugly memories he had tried to forget were pushing at the edges of his mind, whispering incessantly for him to remember. “Not around here. You hadn’t even been to the Narrows before you came here the first time, I’ll bet.”_

_She looked flustered. “No, but…”_

_“I can’t keep you safe.” His voice wavered for a moment, and he paused to let it steady. “I can try, but I already know I’d fail. Anything could happen to you, and I wouldn’t be able to protect you. If you want to survive in the Narrows, you need power, and I don’t have that.”_

_“Yeah, well, you’ve survived this far.” she shot back. Jack rolled his eyes._

_“Right, because I live here and I blend in. No one notices me, and I just mind my own business. Avoid everyone as much as possible. That doesn’t mean you’re safe, or that I’m safe. It just means I’m not the first target around here, you know?”_

_Jeannie was glaring at him. The soft light in her eyes, the one that reminded him of the sun sparking through an bottle of whisky, had turned furious.“It’s not as if I’d go running through the streets waving money at people and begging them to mug me. Shocking as this might seem to you, I actually have a brain.”_

_Jack put his head in his hands. This wasn’t turning out how he had hoped, at all. “I know you do.” His voice was muffled. “I just don’t want you in danger. Why is that so hard to understand?” There was a deep sadness in his tone, something she hadn’t heard before in anyone. It was the voice of someone much older than him, someone who had seen things in their life that had completely disillusioned their view of the world, someone who lived with memories that still scarred them. “You don’t know, Jeannie. You don’t know.”_

_As suddenly as it had appeared, all the anger flooded out of her expression. “Jack, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a brat. It’s just…I thought we could make this work.”_

_He tried to muster a smile, but it felt more like a grimace. “I wish it could.” The sadness in his voice was still there, and his eyes looked far away, as if he was unconsciously being drawn back to a time before._

_She drew back, defeated. “So that’s a no?”_

_“I don’t know what else it can be.” He could see the disappointment in her expression and desperately wished he could make things better. He suddenly hated the Narrows more than he ever had before, hated his father for forcing him into this pathetic, worthless life._

_Most of all, he hated himself for not having the courage to break free._

_“Okay.” Somehow, it would have been better if she was still angry. At least then he could be angry back. But she only looked hurt, and that was worse. “Guess I don’t need to check out any more books then.”_

_“Jeannie…” The word died in his throat before he could speak it._

_“I understand, Jack. You don’t need to explain.” She smiled at him and he looked away, silent. “Goodbye.”_

_He nodded, avoiding her gaze. He heard he walk away, her steps light and decisive. She didn’t look back once. He wished she had, but was glad she didn’t. It would have been worse that way. The door creaked shut behind her, closing with a too-loud bang._

_“Bye.” he muttered to the empty air that remained._


	9. Chapter Eight

“Up against the wall.” A rough voice broke the silence that had filled the dark cell. The four inmates, who had been huddled in the warmest corner trying to sleep, scrambled upright, obeying the voice unquestioningly. “Hands in the air.”

Jack narrowed his eyes, trying to see the owner of the voice. He raised his hands submissively, the pain in his shoulder that had settled into a dull ache rushing back in full force so strongly that he almost gasped aloud. He didn’t let it show on his face; he would sooner be shot all over again than display even the faintest sign of weakness to any of their captors. He was above that…he had always thought pain was never a reasonable excuse for anything, and he wasn’t going to change that philosophy now.

Still, he couldn’t help the way his mouth twitched when he tried to keep his arms raised above his head, or how the floor dipped and spun as the pain rushed through him like a roller coaster gone rogue.

He _was_ only human, after all.

The iron-barred door swung open with a screech, scraping against the gravel-studded floor. A figure, presumably a guard, stepped inside, gun leveled at them. His face was mostly hidden in the shadows, but Jack could see his cold eyes and a long scar that stretched down his gaunt left temple and cheek. After giving the four captives a critical glance, he tucked the gun into his belt and unfolded a crumpled sheet of paper he held in his other hand. “Your names are Adams, Burns, Cantrell, and Napier, am I correct?” His voice, just like the raiders in the village, was heavily accented. 

The prisoners glanced at each other hesitantly, and Adams automatically elected himself as spokesman. “Yes. What do you want?”

The guard folded the paper back up and shoved it into his pocket. “An inspection. Which of you are Cantrell and Napier?”

Ace stepped forward unquestioningly, but Jack hesitated, his gaze instinctively going to the guard’s weapon. This was too much like a firing squad execution for his taste. Unaware of his thoughts, Adams elbowed him in the side. “That’s you, man.”

Shooting a glare at his friend, Jack stepped up reluctantly, steeling himself for whatever was coming. To his surprise, the man didn’t pull the gun from his belt and shoot them both on the spot. He nodded his head to the doorway. “Come with me.”

“You gonna kill us?” Jack asked, not moving. Cantrell looked at him nervously as if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind until then, and the guard chuckled.

“If we wanted to kill you, I’d do it here and now and let your bodies keep your friends company. You think too highly of us.”

“What are you doing, then?”

“I don’t think you are in the position to be asking questions.” the man replied. “If you are interesting in living a little longer, I would advise following me and speaking as little as possible.” He turned away, leaving Jack and Ace no choice but to follow. 

They walked down the hall, their footsteps echoing in the silence. Jack automatically tried to keep track of where they went, in case there was ever a possibility of their escaping. They turned left, then right, then right again. The halls all looked the same, but Jack repeated the turns in his head until they were stuck in his memory. The guard kept a watchful eye on them, his hand resting on the tarnished pistol in his belt. Ace glanced at Jack wordlessly, and Jack shrugged, just as confused at the situation. The guard turned left sharply and opened a door, gesturing for them to enter. Jack froze, survival instinct taking over as he stared warily at the dark room beyond. The guard’s expression tightened and he tapped the gun at his side. “I already told you, we are not going to kill you without reason. But if you try to cause trouble,” He raised an eyebrow meaningfully, “well, that is reason enough.”

Jack glanced at him darkly. “Sorry if I’m suspicious toward the people who killed my unit and locked me up.” 

“Get in. Now.” The guard’s hand hovered dangerously close to his pistol, and Jack obeyed slowly, his feet dragging on the ground as if trying to stop himself. Cantrell followed him, having watched the exchange in nervous silence. 

The lights, dim and spotted with soot and oil, flickered on once they entered, and the guard shut the door. Another man stepped out of a doorway in the opposite wall, glancing at the trio. “These are the two?” His accent was just as heavy, but more refined. The guard nodded, and Jack stared at the newcomer blankly. The man looked at them appraisingly for a moment before speaking.

“You,” he nodded at Cantrell, who stepped back nervously, “you got stuck with a knife, yes?” Ace glanced down at his side, which was still bleeding sluggishly from where he had been stabbed. He nodded uncertainly.

“Uh, yeah?”

“And you,” the man’s gaze shifted to Jack, who stared back uneasily. “bullet in your shoulder?” Jack nodded, his gaze darting back and forth between the the two men. 

“Come with me.” the man said to Cantrell, who followed him through the doorway after a nervous glance back at the other two. Jack was left alone with the guard, who looked at him shrewdly, a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. It was not a pleasant smile, and there was more smug malice to it than friendliness. He sat down on one of the two rusted chairs in the corner of the room, and, after a moment, Jack followed suit. He would have stood if he could, but the floor was still unsteady beneath his feet and it would be less humiliating to sit down than to pass out in front of his captor. The guard glanced at him.

“I told you we would not kill you, did I not? You should learn to trust people more.”

Jack stared stoically at the wall, refusing to answer to his captor. The guard’s expression flickered with disapproval for an instant before his features smoothed out again.

“You are worried about your friend?” he asked, nodding toward the doorway. Jack didn’t look at him, focusing instead on the scuffed floor. 

“Where did that guy take him?”

“There is no purpose in bargaining with dead bodies, is there?” the man said quietly. “I don’t suppose your American friends would care enough about you to buy your corpses off of a few mercenaries.”

“So that’s your job? You try to get the army to buy back prisoners?”

“You’re smarter than you look.” the man said drily. 

“And that man that just came in here. He’s…”

“A medic.” the guard supplied. “Just here to patch you and your friend up. You’ll have to excuse us, though. We didn’t have enough sedatives to waste on you two.”

Jack smiled faintly, his eyes fixed on a long crack that ran up the stone wall. Maybe he should have been worried about that, but he couldn’t summon the energy to feel anything. He was already in pain…would a little more really matter that much? “Sweet of you to care.”

“I’m not apologizing. Only warning you.” The man looked as if he relished the thought. Jack finally turned to look at him, amused. 

“Warning me of what?” If he couldn’t intimidate this guy, at least he could show him that threats and scare tactics would get him nowhere. 

“Pretending that pain does not frighten you is a pathetic way to make me respect you.” the guard said flatly. Jack shrugged.

“Okay. Sorry to disappoint.”

They were silent for a while, then the guard spoke again. “You realize you will not even have the hope of being free until we know where your allies are stationed.”

“I don’t know where they are.” Jack said, turning back to look at the wall. “Neither does anyone else here. We hadn’t been put in contact yet when we got to the village. You should have waited a little longer until you barged in.”

The guard’s lip twisted in anger and he got to his feet. The legs of the chair grated against the floor as he pushed it aside. Jack didn’t move, only watched in silence as the guard stood over him, gripping the gun in his right hand. 

“I told you we wouldn’t kill you unless you cause trouble. What you are doing right now, I consider more trouble than I would prefer.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You’re bothered because I criticized your attack techniques? A little touchy, don’t you think?” _Shut up, idiot, or you’ll never walk out of here alive!_ his mind screamed at him, but it was too late to take it back. He licked his lips nervously, but kept his face blank. 

The guard lifted his gun and leveled it at Jack’s face, who stared unblinkingly at the barrel. “If you speak again, I will kill you.” Jack felt the cold metal press against his forehead, and against every instinct in his body, he leaned forward, looking up at his enraged companion.

“You won’t. I’m worth too much.” As soon as he spoke, he knew it was true. Words came tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop himself, spurred on by his sudden understanding of the situation. “You can do a lot of things with me, you can belittle me, you can torture me, you can even threaten to kill me. But you won’t actually do it, because you need me.” A swell of confidence swept through him as he realized the impact of his words. Because it was true. The man _did_ need him, and he wouldn’t kill him, no matter how badly he wanted to. At least, he was likely not to. Somehow, that grain of doubt, that creeping thought that maybe the man would actually shoot him, didn't scare Jack. His mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile. “If you really could kill me, you would have done it already.”

He felt the gun shift against his skin as the man’s hand shook with anger, and he _did_ smile; faintly, and not with much enthusiasm, but a smile nonetheless. A new energy was coursing through him, foreign and exciting. The pain in his shoulder had melted away. Staring down the barrel of the gun, watching as the guard’s finger brushed the trigger, he didn’t feel fear. At the same time, he knew the man, if provoked enough, could kill him out of blind rage. Even if it would get him in trouble, or he would lose money on it, he was human, and humans could be pushed to limits. There was no certainty of anything, but somehow it didn’t matter. It wasn’t frightening at all.

Looking death in the face, Jack had never felt so alive.

The door opened, and the guard’s lips drew together in a tight, almost pained line as he lowered the gun. The energy drained from Jack’s consciousness as quickly as it had risen up, and his eyes widened. Had he really allowed himself to be cornered in such a dangerous situation? And worse, had he _enjoyed_ it? That was the question that needed immediate pondering. Why else had he felt so exhilarated as he waited for the guard to put a bullet through his head? There was no denying that, caught up in the heat of the moment, he had liked the danger, and he hated himself for it. Hated himself more than he ever had before, because it was _selfish,_ and it was foolish. Those weren’t the thoughts of reason, he told himself, not the thoughts of a man in control. 

_Because you weren’t in control. And you liked it. You liked the uncertainty of it all, the risk._

_The chaos._

The world spun. No. No, he wasn’t here to take risks. He hadn’t come so far, fought so hard, to die. That wasn’t who he was…who _she_ wanted him to be. His hands began to shake as he thought about Jeannie, waiting back home to see him again. He had almost lost that forever. The room suddenly felt cold, colder than he had ever been before. This wasn’t fear he was feeling, this was terror.

_How could you be so selfish?_

A voice broke through his jumbled thoughts, and he looked up to see Cantrell and the medic standing there. Cantrell glanced at Jack, relief shining in his eyes that neither of them had been carted off to be slaughtered, and Jack tried to muster some sort of similar expression, but the smile trembled and died on his lips. His face felt frozen and numb, and he was shaking.

The medic turned to Jack. “Your turn.” He brushed his hands across his dusty white-grey coat, and Jack stood up, avoiding eye contact with the guard. His legs trembled as he stood, and he clenched his fists to try and ground himself. He stared at the floor, looking for something to focus on. He didn’t even want to think about what had transpired a moment ago. 

Wordlessly, he followed the medic through the doorway and into another badly lit alcove. The man gestured to a seat in the corner. “Sit down.” He turned to a drawer in the opposite corner, and Jack obeyed, nearly collapsing as his legs gave out. He hadn’t felt such sheer panic in a long time, and he wasn’t prepared for it.

_If they hadn’t come in, he would have killed you. You’d never see Jeannie again, never see Gotham again, and you would have died in this dark little hole, forgotten and alone. Do you realize that?_

_You would have died, and no one would know._

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. It had just been a moment, he hadn’t been in his right mind. Besides, it had passed, _and_ he was still alive, right? That was all that mattered.

His hands slowly stopped trembling so much. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore.

The medic turned back to him, all but brandishing a long scalpel. His lips curled up into an unkind smile. “I suppose you were told that we will not put you to sleep for this.”

Jack glanced at him indifferently. The man seemed to waver in his line of vision like a cloud of smoke. As if a threat like that would scare him, after what had just happened. “Yeah.”

The man looked snubbed at the prisoner’s apparent fearlessness. “You have done this before?”

“Nope. Maybe you should stop chatting and get to it.” Jack’s voice was growing steady again, and his heart wasn’t beating out of his chest anymore.

“You think you are brave, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “I think a lot of things.” 

Irritated at the ambiguity of the prisoner’s answers, the medic didn’t respond. He held the scalpel up against the younger man’s shoulder and glanced at his face, almost anxiously. Searching for fear.

Jack decided in that moment that he would do anything but give the man that satisfaction.

“Are you prepared?” 

Prepared? Jack almost laughed. He had almost got himself _killed_ mere moments ago, and now he was supposed to be concerned about this? The man could cut his face off and he would probably thank him. There was nothing compared to that sickening cold fear that had washed over him in nauseous waves when his head had cleared and he’d understood the consequences of having a pistol barrel aimed at his head. No fear would amount to that, not just because he’d been milliseconds from having his brains blown against the wall, but because he’d _wanted_ it to happen.

He doubted if he could feel fear like that again.

He set his face and stared calmly at the man, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Are you?”


	10. Chapter Nine

_At first, Jack had thought he wouldn’t really miss her. Not for long, at least. Maybe a few hours of pining, a bit of regret, but then he could move on and forget about everything that had happened. It had been ridiculous anyway, pretending he could be more than he was._

_But by the time five o’clock rolled around, it took all his willpower to not immediately bolt up and make a break for the door. The hours had ticked by with agonizing slowness and every tick of the clock on the wall drove him a little more out of his mind. Jeannie was the only thing he could think of…how she had looked at him with such disappointment in her thoughtful eyes, how she had tried so hard to convince him that she wasn’t too good for him, how he’d refused to do believe her. And now she was gone. Just as soon as he’d started to think that maybe, in some faraway hopeful world, this could all actually work out, he’d gone and messed everything up._

_Typical._

_The hour hand of the clock finally did reach five, and Jack stood up, grabbing his jacket. He didn’t wait for the next shift worker to replace him…he had to get out, to run as far away from this place as he could. The library only reminded him of Jeannie, and her presence was stifling. He almost ran to the back and out the door that led into the alleyway._

_Outside was better. At least he could think of other things out here. The bitter wind sent a spiral of brown dead leaves spiraling and skittering across the floor of the alley, and Jack wondered where they had come from. The last time he had seen trees was when he had gone uptown to meet…_

_And there she was again, clawing her way back into his thoughts. He gritted his teeth and kept walking, stepping on as many leaves as he could for good measure. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t hurt them, that they were already dead. At least he could feel like he was avenging the attack on his consciousness._

_Dim lights shone from the soot-stained windows of the apartment building when he walked up the steps. As winter got closer, the nights grew darker early, and he liked seeing the lights welcome him home. It made the dreary, sad old building look a little more presentable than it did in the daytime, when it was an ungainly slab of concrete, choked with dead ivy that had crept up the sides over the years. He still didn't like the apartment...there was never anything there for him but the frequent unprovoked beating and admonishment from his father (“Why are you home so late? Traipsing around with some hussy or buying dope from your friends at the library?”) Jack only wished he had the guts to remind his dad that it was traipsing around with some hussy and buying dope that had gotten the man into this dumpster apartment and thankless life in the first place. As if he could even dream of saying that without being murdered._

_But it was home, and he couldn't go anywhere else if he wanted, anyway._

_He opened the apartment door and tried to sneak past the sleeping figure on the patched sofa to his room. Before he was safely inside, the familiar voice stopped him, slurred and harsh._

_“Got any plans tonight, Jackie?”_

_His shoulders tensed involuntarily and he turned around slowly, trying to not look as scared as he felt. He hated himself for being such a coward, but he couldn’t help it. “No.”_

_His father took a swig from whatever he was drinking and grinned. “Course you don’t. You never have plans. Gotta have friends to have plans, right?”_

_Jack clenched his hands into fists, his face burning. “Right.” he said quietly. Disagreeing was an instant death play with his father, especially when he was as drunk as this. He was a big man, and Jack, whose fighting skills were limited to throwing a punch if he was lucky, would never stand a chance against him._

_“I need you to do a little job for me.” Patrick Napier sat up, his eyes narrowed to slits. They were icy blue; that color was what made Jack’s mother fall for the man nineteen years ago. Her eyes had been brown, the same color as his, which his father never failed to mention when he was feeling nostalgic._

You’ve got your mama’s eyes, kid, and just about the same amount of backbone.

_“A job?” Jack echoed uncertainly. His father sat up straight and flung the bottle with ferocious strength at his son. Jack ducked and the glass smashed against the door._

_“Don’t parrot me, boy! You heard me the first time! Yes, I’ve got a job for you.”_

_Jack flinched as his father’s voice grew louder, and he chastised himself for not being more careful. “Okay. Okay, I’ll do it.”_

_“Of course you’ll do it. I wasn’t asking for your permission, Jackie-boy.” His father got up and stumbled to the tiny kitchen, opening the fridge. Jack, who had stepped back cautiously when the man had stood up, watched him with wary eyes._

_“What’s the job?” He had never gotten involved in his father’s work before, mostly because Patrick didn’t trust him to not be caught by the cops. He hadn’t wanted to get involved, knowing that it would crush his remaining hopes of getting out of this mess of a life someday, but when the man was standing there, staring at him with a threat brewing in his eyes, he couldn’t exactly refuse._

_Patrick cracked open a dented beer can with one hand and pulled a plastic bag down from the top of the fridge with the other. “Need you to deliver this to a guy. You’re gonna meet him in the alley where Sixty-Third and Second Street cross. Make sure he gives you the money.”_

_Jack eyed the bag anxiously. “How much money?”_

_“Should be about half a grand. Count it before you give him the stuff. Otherwise he’ll rip you off.”_

_“What’s the guy’s name?”_

_“I never ask my clients’ names. He’ll find you if you’re on time. Meet him there at no later than nine, and he’ll be there to give you the cash.”_

_Jack pressed his hands together to keep them from trembling. This was much more intimidating now that he was actually doing it.“Okay.” His voice started to shake, and he quickly cut off anything else he wanted to say. His father tossed him a sharp glance._

_“Not scared, are you, Jack? We ain’t got no time for chickens.”_

_“I’m not scared.” he said softly, almost a whisper. It was one of the most blatant lies he had ever told, but it was better than having a few bones broken with a baseball bat. Besides, it was just this one time. If his dad had been doing this for years and hadn’t been caught, then surely he could make it this one night. All he had to do was a simple trade._

_“You sound scared to me.” There was a warning light in his father’s eyes, and Jack shook his head almost frantically, backing up against the wall. He leaned against it, as if it would protect him._

_“I’m not.” The words came out a little more naturally this time, and his voice was steadier._

_“Good. This is no time for slip-ups.” His father tossed the bag back onto the fridge and trudged back to the sofa. Jack crept into his room and shut the door behind him softly. He sat down on the edge of the bed, staring out over the dusk-shrouded rooftops of the Narrows. His heart was thumping painfully in his chest and his hands felt numb, but he had agreed to the job and he wasn't backing out now._

_A realization came to him as he sat, staring out the window, and a faint, bitter smile crept across his face._

_As bad as this situation was, at least he hadn’t thought about Jeannie for five whole minutes. He would take a little fear over regret any day._

 

_\+ + + + +_

 

_Jack shifted back and forth on his feet, hunching his shoulders and trying to not freeze to death. Even in the alley the wind was harsh and cold, and his jacket didn’t do much to keep out the chill. He’d lost his only pair of gloves the year before, and his fingers felt as if they would fall off at any second. He switched the bag he held to his right hand and buried the other in his pocket._

_It had been eight o’clock when he’d left, and he had stood here for almost an hour. No one had shown up except for a group of teenagers who had barely given him a second glance. He hadn’t wandered too far from the alley, but he had been bored out of his mind after about fifteen minutes, so he had explored the nearby neighborhood before returning to his post. A terrible thought occurred to him…what if the man had already come and he hadn’t been there? There was no way he could explain that situation to his dad if that was what happened. His hands started shaking, and not just from the cold. His breath came faster, leaving puffs of steam in the frigid air._

_The one time his father had entrusted him with something important, and he’d screwed it up. If the man didn’t show up…_

_He almost jumped out of his skin when a hand touched his shoulder, and he spun around._

_“Woah there, kid. Don’t spook.” A tall man in a black coat stood over him, his hands raised. His voice was rough, but not frightening, and Jack relaxed, wondering if this was the guy he was supposed to meet. He looked too wealthy to live in the Narrows, but a lot of his father’s clients lived uptown and only came to the slums to buy the drugs._

_“You Napier’s boy?” the man asked, and Jack nodded. So this_ was _the guy. “You got my stuff?”_

_Jack clutched the bag tighter. “He said to get the money first.” His voice came out much too quiet, barely more than a whisper, and the man raised an eyebrow._

_“Doesn’t trust his old pal, does he? That hurts, kid.” He placed a hand over his heart in mock sorrow, inching closer. Jack backed away uncertainly._

_“Do you have the money?”_

_“Course I have the money. You show me the stuff and I show you the cash.”_

_Jack hesitated before opening the bag and displaying the powdered contents. He didn’t even know what type of drug it was, but if it was worth half a grand, he was going to keep it close until he got the money. The man looked appraisingly at it, then reached into his pocket, holding out his other hand. Jack moved out of arm’s reach and the man withdrew both hands, empty._

_“Look, kid, your dad just didn’t want you giving this to any random guy that showed up. He knows me, and he knows I’ll pay him back if I take it now.” There was a slightly threatening tone creeping into his voice, and Jack tensed, his mouth going dry._

_“He said…”_

_“Yeah, you already told me. Only thing you’ve said so far. Just give me the bag and I promise I’ll get your dad the cash before tomorrow night.”_

_Jack shook his head. “I’m not going to.”_

_The man stepped closer. “You know I could take you out with one swing and walk away with the goods, right? If you wanna get out of this without a fuss, hand it over.”_

_“Why didn’t you bring the money?” Jack tried to sound reasonable, even if he was shaking with fear. Why had his dad let him do this? Had he known the man was going to try and steal the drugs?_

_“I don’t get paid till tomorrow, and I need it tonight. As a show of good faith for a mob boss bigwig ‘round here. You don’t know how we operate, kid, so stay out of it.”_

_“Just tell him you can’t get it until tomorrow because you won’t have the money before then.” Jack suggested, and the man’s eyes narrowed._

_“You tryin’ to talk your way outta this, little buddy? You listen to me.” He was so close now that he could easily reach out and grab the bag, and Jack gripped it tighter. His heart felt like it would beat right out of his chest. “I don’t care what Napier told you, but he’s gonna have to be content with waiting a day. I don’t have time for this.”_

_“No, please…” Jack blurted out. “He’s gonna beat me if I don’t have the money, and…”_

_“Well, that doesn’t sound like my problem, does it?” The man responded coldly. Without warning, his hand shot out and he grabbed ahold of the bag. Jack clung onto it with both hands, but the man punched him hard in the mouth with his free fist, and Jack staggered back against the alley wall, dropping it, pain exploding through every nerve in his face. The bag hadn't been tied up at the top, and almost half the contents spilled out onto the ground, dissolving into a mud puddle that brimmed up from a pothole. They both froze, and the man slowly turned to look at the boy._

_“You shoulda given it to me straight away, kid.” he said quietly, and Jack could see the anger building in his eyes. He stumbled backward, feeling blood start to trickle down his face where the man had hit him, and turned to run, but the man gripped onto the sleeve of his shirt, causing him to stumble back. “I’m not finished with you. I’m gonna have to have a word with your dear dad about you, you know. We can’t have jumpy kids runnin’ around trying to do our business for us, can we?”_

_Jack struggled to get away. “Please…please don’t.” he gasped, panic setting in as he envisioned the fury in his father’s eyes. How he would back his son into a corner and beat him until he was almost dead, but keep him alive just enough to feel it. He knew he shouldn’t be scared by now, he should be able to take it, but some deep-set reflexive part of him still cringed in terror at the thought. He hated himself for that, hated that he could still be so vulnerable, but but he couldn’t help it. “Please don’t tell him.”_

_“Oh, I will. You’ll be the first part of the message. Second part’ll be a gun in the old man’s face.”_

_“I can talk to him…tell him what you said…” Jack reached up to wipe the blood off his face, trying to get away._

_“No can do, kiddo. Besides, I thought I just told you to stay out of our way. Didn’t I?” Jack nodded, and the man dragged him closer. “I wouldn’t want you to forget again. We’d better make sure you remember, right?”_

_“Right.” he whispered. The man smiled._

_“Well, I guarantee this’ll keep your memory fresh.” From a pocket in the folds of his jacket, he produced a switchblade, clicking it open. Jack stared in horror, redoubling his efforts to get away._

_“Please don’t kill me…I promise I’ll stay away from you and I won’t get in your away again…I really do promise, just please don’t…” Panic was setting in, breaking through every barrier of bravado he had tried to construct, and he no longer felt like he was nineteen and almost an adult, he felt like he was eight years old and trying not to cry while he listened to his father kill his mother, tears standing in his eyes because he was certain that he was next._

_The man laughed. “Changed your tune a bit now, haven’t you? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill you. Just want to teach you a lesson.” The switchblade flashed down toward Jack’s face in a blur of silver light, and he ducked away, the air whistling as the knife swung by. The man grunted in annoyance. “Hold still, you little…”_

_Jack kicked him in the knee, trying to twist out of his powerful grip. The man hissed in pain and staggered back, and Jack used the opportunity to break free, falling back against the brick wall. He paused for a millisecond, trying to catch his breath as his heart still raced much too fast, and the man was on him in an instant, his fist crashing into his face again and again. Jack barely felt it, all his attention focused on avoiding the knife that was still swinging wildly through the air. He kept picturing it connecting with his throat and him bleeding out in the alley, choking to death on his own blood. Trying to call for help but unable to make a single sound._

_All alone._

No, don’t think that. Don’t panic. Just get away from him as fast as you can.

_The man’s clenched fist filled up his vision over and over, and Jack clung onto consciousness as best he could, miraculously staying out of the switchblade’s way. The man was shouting at him, some words unintelligible gibberish that he barely comprehended through the haze in his head, but one thing he could hear clearly, a sentence the man repeated over and over again like some crazed, demented mantra._

_“Just hold still, kid, and let’s put a smile on that face!”_

_He tried to defend himself, to get in a hit edgewise in the very least, but he wasn’t a fighter and the man was bigger than him. The only thing he could do was run, and he couldn’t do that very well when he was pinned to the alley wall with a guy turning his face into something that looked like it got run over by a bulldozer._

_He thought he was imagining it when a voice called out from the alley entrance, “What’s going on in there?” There hadn’t been anyone around moments before. But he wasn’t imagining it when a metal pole came crashing down on the man’s head, and it was certainly real when his eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the ground in a heap, face-down in the puddle beside the spilled bag. Jack stared, wide-eyed, at the young man holding the pole._

_“You okay?” the newcomer asked, his voice sounding faint and far-away. Jack blinked through quickly-swelling eyes, wondering if this was a strange hallucination. Maybe the guy had killed him and he was dead._

_“Yeah.” he croaked, leaning back against the wall. At least_ that _was real. The young man set the pole on the ground and glanced at the now-unconscious attacker._

_“What’s his problem?”_

_Jack surveyed him suspiciously. The man didn’t look like he was from that Narrows, that was for sure. His coat looked like it had been personally tailored and his shoes, splattered with mud as they were, definitely came from some highbrow customized show company. If such things existed. Maybe he was a drug buyer too and had seized an opportunity when he saw what was going on in the alley. Jack's eyes darted to the half-spilled bag on the ground._

_“None of your business.” he replied, aloof. His heart was still racing, but most of the panic had subsided. He straightened up, trying to ignore the pounding in his head and the way the world spun around him like a carousel that had gone off the rails. His face felt like someone had used it as their personal punching bag, but he wasn’t going to back down in front of this rich twerp._

_“Looks to me like you’re in over your head.” the man said, but it wasn’t accusing. He was just stating a fact. Jack noticed his hair, how it was cut almost straight across his forehead. His lips twitched._

Dork.

_This guy had better run back to whatever fancy place he’d come from, because he would never last five minutes on the streets._

_Then again, he wasn’t the one who had almost been killed in the alley._

_“I’m not in over my head.” Jack stepped in front of the bag, hoping the movement wasn’t too noticeable. “Also, who are you? You don’t live here.” It wasn’t a question._

_The man shook his head, looking almost embarrassed. “I…yeah, I don’t live here. I mean, I live in Gotham, but not…” He gestured vaguely around, his coat flapping in the wind. That coat probably cost more than every single one of Jack’s paychecks for the year, combined._

_“Not in the slums.” Jack filled in, licking blood off his lip. The man shrugged, looking away. “So what are you doing in an alley in the Narrows at night? You buying drugs or something?”_

_The man looked shocked. “No, I…I went on a walk and somehow ended up here.” He shook his head again and Jack frowned. This guy was weird. It was like he was in a daze, and Jack wondered if maybe he was already on drugs. Rich people were unpredictable. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”_

_“I’m not complaining. That guy woulda killed me if you hadn’t come by.” Jack bent down to pick up the bag, stuffing it into his jacket. The man paid no attention. “But if you're not here to buy drugs, you'd better get out. Rick guys like you are target practice for the folks around here.”_

_“Yeah, I’m leaving.” He still sounded distant. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”_

_“I’d suggest moving a little faster than that.” Jack tried to push past him, anxious to get away, but the man didn’t move._

_“Sorry, I meant…” He trailed off, staring contemplatively at the unconscious body of the drug dealer sprawled out on the ground. “You’re sure you’re okay?”_

_Jack prodded gingerly at one black eye. “I’m fine. Thanks for that, by the way.”_

_“Least I could do.” He smiled, a little bitterly. “What’s your name, kid?”_

_“Jack.” It was probably best to keep the information output at a minimum, especially if this guy had ins with the police or something. “You?” he asked for good measure._

_“Bruce.”_

_“Well, thanks, Bruce.”_

_“Uh huh.”_

_Jack finally got past him and walked out of the alley. He didn’t look back, but he could tell the young man was still there, probably still staring down at the body in the alley. He shrugged. As much as he hated the Narrows, at least they didn’t have to deal with rich saps with dorky hair all day. If there was any plus side to life, it was that._

_His steps slowed as he got closer to the apartment, and the situation he had gotten himself into finally sank in. He stopped on the bottom step leading up to the front door, shivering in the cold wind. A torn piece of newspaper skittered by on the sidewalk and caught for a moment on the wire fence surrounding the building. Jack caught a glimpse of the headline, which read,_ “Wayne Killer Murdered After Trial This Afternoon: Suspect in Custody.” _So someone else had been murdered. Just like he was going to be murdered if he went up to the apartment with half a bag of drugs and no money. There was no way he was going in there tonight. He knew it would only make things worse to prolong the impending confrontation with his father, but he couldn’t force himself to go inside. Maybe it was survival instincts, maybe it was cowardice, but Jack spent the night behind the apartment building, sleeping between the two overflowing dumpsters as the wind whistled and howled overhead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please r&r i'd love to hear any comments or criticisms you have :)


	11. Chapter Ten

“I fold.” Adams tossed down his hand of cards and leaned back against the iron bars of the door. 

“Coward.” Burns smirked, tossing two rocks into the circle they had cleared away on the ground, where a small pile of gravel was growing in lieu of poker chips. Watching the game from the corner where he was unsuccessfully trying to keep warm in the drafty cell, his jacket pulled up over his knees like a blanket, Jack wondered when the last time had been when he had actually played with real poker chips. He couldn’t remember. He wasn’t even sure if he had ever played poker before going overseas. He probably never would have if Jeannie hadn’t given him that deck of cards.

“Not a coward, just smart.” Adams retorted indignantly. “I’m pretty sure you’re stacking the deck whenever you deal, anyway.”

Burns raised his hands in defense. “I swear I’m not. You just think I’m a cheat whenever you start losing.”

“That’s cause I’ve caught you cheating before, idiot.”

Burns pointed to Jack. “Ask him! He’s been watching me the whole time.”

Jack shook his head. “I wasn’t. But you probably were stacking the deck.”

Burns groaned. “Honestly, you’d think I could get some gratitude for playing thirty rounds of poker a day, but no.”

“Whatever.” Adams nodded at Cantrell, who had watched the whole thing silently. “Your turn.”

“I fold too.” He set down his cards and they watched as Burns gathered the rocks to his steadily growing pile with a wry smile on his face. 

“Lighten up, guys. It’s not like it’s money or anything.”

“You want to play?” Cantrell glanced around the other two at Jack, who looked up. “You can switch with me. I’m getting sick of this game.”

“No thanks.” Jack pulled his jacket tighter around him.

“You sure?” Adams cut in, shuffling the deck. “Not much you can play with the hand you’ve got.” He nodded to the two cards Jack had been fiddling with.

Jack glanced down at them, the grinning jesters with harlequin ruffles hanging around their necks staring back. “Better company than any of you.” He’d meant to say it lightly, with a smile, but he'd forgotten to add that part on and it sounded more like an insult. He added as a means of apology, "I'll pay a round if you need another hand dealt.”

“I have a better idea.” Adams said, setting the cards down by the pile of gravel. “Let’s do something other than play cards for once.”

“Like what?” Burns lay back on the ground, staring at the stained ceiling. Adams shrugged, finally voicing the thought they had all considered.

“Like maybe figure out how we’re gonna get out of here. You know they’re just waiting to kill us if they can’t find the unit.”

“We’re too valuable.” Cantrell said without much conviction, chewing his lower lip. “They wouldn’t kill us, just sell us off to some other American unit.”

“If they can find any.”

“Didn’t have any trouble finding us.”

“Yeah, because we were literally right next to their little hideout!” 

“You’re not helping.” Burns cut in reasonably. “Do you have any actual ideas?”

They shook their heads in unison, and Burns turned to Jack, who was watching silently. “What about you, Napier?”

“Sorry, I don’t have anything.” Jack shrugged, setting the cards to the side. “Not yet, anyway.” He kept his voice low and steady, hiding the impatience that constantly hung in his mind like a black cloud. If they didn’t find some way to escape, he was going to go crazy for sure. These past few weeks had been torture, sitting around aimlessly, waiting for a chance to be saved that they all knew would never come. The other three would occasionally mention, with half-hearted enthusiasm, how they would be grateful when someone came for them. But none of them actually believed it.

_You’re on your own._

Listening to the quiet murmur of his companions’ voices and the soft slap of cards in the murky darkness, Jack closed his eyes. Since their arrival at the underground prison, he had had trouble sleeping even thirty minutes through the night. He wasn't restless; if he could sleep, he gladly would have. But every time he closed his eyes, the nightmares would start up. Before, they had only been about Hyde and the soldiers on the truck, spurred on by the guilt Jack couldn't shake, even after a full two months. Now they had changed, but not to become less horrifying. Memories of the past had inexplicably surfaced, clawing their way back into his mind, persistently whispering to be let out. When he occasionally gave up and let himself drift off into an uneasy sleep, the blurred yet wholly and terribly recognizable figure of his father would materialize, his eyes glittering with the manic light Jack had only seen twice occasions in his life; when he had witnessed the man beat the drug buyer in the alley with the two-by-four, and when his mother was killed.

He shook his head sharply, as if trying to dislodge the unpleasant thoughts. No, he couldn’t be thinking those things now. Fear clogged the mind and made people do insane things. He couldn’t risk that, not when there was no place to go and he had only himself to rely on. Sure, the other three were here with him, but when it came down to to the cold hard truth of the matter, Jack knew he couldn’t have complete faith in any of them. If there was anything he had learned in his twenty-four years on earth, it was that. They could work together, but it was every man for himself in the long run. They all knew that.

Jack hadn’t realized he’d picked up the cards again until the edge of one cut into the palm of his hand. He looked down in surprise at the sharp sting. There was no blood, only the eternally grinning jester leering up at him, the same as ever. Jack stared at his hand in vague interest. Funny how paper cuts could hurt so much when they were practically invisible. Something brushed the edge of his thoughts.

_Sometimes it’s not the things on the outside that cause the most pain._

Almost scoffing aloud at himself, Jack rolled his eyes. _What are you, a philosopher or something? Some Aristotle you are, you couldn’t even get past ninth grade._

“Think you’re smart, huh, Jackie-boy?”

Jack froze, unconsciously crumpling the card in his hand. His eyes swept the room feverishly, the pupils shrunk to pinpoints of black. The words slipped from his mouth before he could stop himself.

“Where are you?”

“What was that, Napier?” Cantrell craned his neck to look back at Jack, whose petrified stare latched onto his friend like a drowning man clinging to driftwood. He couldn't speak for a moment, the words trembling in the back of his throat but not strong enough to come out. Cantrell's forehead creased in worry.

“You okay, man?”

Jack nodded mutely, wrapping his arms tighter around his knees and trying to breathe naturally. Cantrell stared at him silently for a moment longer, and Jack could see the confusion in his eyes, even in the dim light. He wanted to speak, wanted to reassure the other that everything was fine, that he hadn’t said anything, but as hard as he tried to force the words out, nothing came. Cantrell finally turned away and Jack let out a shaky breath, his hands clutching one another with frightened intensity. 

It wasn’t real. That was all in the past…if he made it out of here alive, he’d be able to start a new life like they had planned. His father was gone…Hyde was gone…they were all part of a hideous dream. Not reality. It wasn’t real.

“Keep tellin’ yourself that.” the gravely voice whispered in his ear. Jack’s mouth trembled, and he felt like he was eight years old, cowering in the corner as his father raged in the tiny apartment living room, bottle in one hand, his voice filling Jack’s head until it felt like it would explode. “You keep tellin’ yourself that, Jackie.”

_Go away._ he thought fiercely, not risking speaking aloud again. _Go away, you’re dead._

“You wish, buddy.” A low chuckle, the one he had heard so many times before, rang in his ear. “You only wish.”

_I’m not scared of you._ But he was. Scared out of his wits. Like the coward he was.

_Fear clogs the senses…_

“I used to have such high hopes for you, Jack.” The voice was almost reasonable now, almost kind. Jack flinched. “I used to tell your mother that you’d do great things, you know.”

_My mother? The one you murdered?_

“Murder is a strong word.”

Jack’s face crumpled and he buried his head in his arms, the cold fear he thought he’d lost creeping back up over his shoulders. _Go away. Please go away._

Someone struck a match, the acrid smell of sulfur and sandpapery scrape of the wood interrupted the voice in Jack's head. He glanced up hesitantly, almost expecting to see the hulking shape of his father standing before him, anger like ice in his blue eyes. There was no one, and Jack tried to distract himself by watching Adams hold the match to the cigarette lodged in the corner of his mouth. The tiny light threw sharp shadows against the wall, and Jack almost didn't heard Adams' question.

“Want one?” He held out the dwindling pack of cigarettes to his friend. Jack hesitated, not wanting to take one of Adams’ few remaining possessions, but his hands were still shaking from nerves, and anything to calm them was a welcome relief. He took the match from Adams, quickly lighting the end of the proffered cigarette as the spark began to burn against his fingers. That momentary prick of pain was an even more welcome relief, and by this time, he almost felt okay again. 

_Doing nothing is getting to you, that’s all. Your mind’s bored, so it’s playing tricks on you._ His eyes swept the room and his three companions. _They’re all probably experiencing the same thing. It’s not unusual._

Yes, in fact, he was sure he’d read something about that in a book at the library once. He was just bored, and worried about escaping. It was the stress that was getting to him. That was right, it had to be. The only other explanation would be that he was going crazy.

And that was _not_ what was happening.

 

\+ + + + + +

 

Jack knew it was nighttime, because the tiny window in the corner didn’t yield even the faintest light. He also knew because he wanted nothing more than to give in and sleep for a year. His eyes felt gritty and unfocused, and every muscle in his body was begging him to rest, but he couldn’t. He was willing to do whatever it took to quiet the voices in his mind.

Slowly getting to his feet, Jack stepped over the sleeping forms of the other three in the cell, making his way to the barred door. He could see the guard a few feet away, absorbed in his task of cleaning a long curved knife. Jack sat down next to the door, leaning his forehead against the cold metal bars and blinking his eyes rapidly to keep them open. It was the faintest bit lighter here, and he hoped it would be enough to stay awake. His shoulder ached from where the medic had patched it up, and he welcomed the pain as a way to distract him from his exhaustion.

He shifted against the bars, and the guard looked up sharply. "What are you doing?"

Jack stared down the long hall that disappeared off into blackness. He didn’t feel like talking, and it was clear he wasn’t doing any harm. The guard, however, was not convinced.

“I said, what are you doing?”

Jack dragged his gaze to the man’s face. “Nothing.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping like your friends over there?” The man pointed with his knife. 

“I’m not tired.” If only that were true.

The man surveyed him skeptically. “Lies make me suspicious, boy.”

Jack gritted his teeth. What was he supposed to say? That he was too scared to go to sleep because he might have nightmares? How more pathetic could he get? He was a soldier, for God’s sake, not a little kid. “I was wondering what type of knife that was.” Maybe he could switch the subject.

The man paused in his work, holding the weapon out almost fondly. It was a different guard than normal, not the one with the long scar on the side of his face. This one was older, possibly fifty-five, with enough muscle to bench-press at least two of the four occupants of the cell. Jack decided it was probably best to not agitate him, and hoped his comment wouldn’t be taken as a threat.

“She is a carving knife.” the man replied, watching as the scratched blade flashed in the light. 

“Like for cutting food?” 

He smiled almost indulgently. “Some might use it for that, yes. But we have a special purpose.” He paused, the silence drawn out before he continued, “Do you know what we are called?”  
“Who’s we?” Jack asked carefully, eyeing the knife. He didn’t like the way the man was looking at him. “You and the other mercenaries?” The man nodded. “I don’t know.”

The man leaned forward, relishing the drama. “They call us _Arlekeno._ You know what that means?”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t speak your language.”

“Oh, you have an American word for it. You know, at the circus, those ones.” The man motioned with his hands, and after a moment Jack realized he was pantomiming juggling.

“Clowns?” he asked uncertainly. The man nodded with enthusiasm, wagging the knife at his face.

“Yes, you catch on fast! That’s what they call us.”

Jack almost made a comment about how being called a clown wasn't exactly complimentary, but caught himself just in time. He’d had enough of looking death in the face recently. “Why?"

“Well, you see,” the man explained patiently, turning the knife over in his hands, “there are a lot of groups like ours around here, you know. So many, and they all do the same thing. We decided we need something to make us _different,_ to…” he grasped for the right words, “set us apart.” He grinned, and Jack began to wish he hadn’t asked. There was something unsettling about this. “A…what do you call it… _signature._ And then we caught this one man.”

His voice was soft, almost soothing, and Jack felt an uncomfortable shiver run up his spine. His shoulder was still hurting, and he realized he’d unconsciously tensed his muscles while listening to the man’s story. He tried to relax, but he was too on edge.

“This particular person, who lived in a nearby town, didn’t understand how serious we were. We had been given orders to capture him and exchange him for money from his family, but he did not know what to expect from us. Perhaps he thought we planned on turning him back in unharmed.”

Jack swallowed, trying to keep from nervously biting his lip. “You killed him?”

“Why would we do that? We would get no money, and besides, we hadn’t been told to kill him. But we didn’t return him quite the same. You see,” the man cracked his knuckles and tossed the knife expertly in the air, catching it as it fell, “he needed to learn a lesson. He needed to know that no one laughs at us. So we took him to our leader and asked him what we should do. Do you know what he suggested?”

“I don’t know.” Jack stared at the blade, mesmerized by the light bouncing off it as the man continued tossing it and catching it. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘see how he likes to laugh when he doesn’t want to.’ And so we did.” The man smiled. “He didn’t think we were so funny after all.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand…” 

The man shrugged. “If you and your friends behave, then you won’t have to. Something to keep in mind.” He turned back to cleaning his knife, signaling the end of the conversation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and criticisms are always appreciated :)


	12. Chapter Eleven

_Sixteen Years Earlier_

 

_The door slammed, the impact reverberating through every wall in the apartment. Jack listened to the heavy footsteps that lurched across the threadbare-carpet floor outside the bedroom, and the creak of the couch as his father sat down. It was followed by the familiar snap of a beer can opening._

_Jack always thought that must be the same sound that necks made when they were broken._

_His mother, who was sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, stiffened as she heard Patrick enter the apartment. She quietly closed the copy of_ Alice in Wonderland _she had been reading aloud to her son and set it on the nightstand, smoothing her blouse as she stood up. Jack looked up at her, thinking of how she kept her head turned away from him so he couldn’t see the black eye she hid with her hair, how she thought he didn’t know how his father would shout at her and hit her when Jack was supposed to be asleep in the other room. On those nights, he would creep out onto the fire escape, shutting the door behind him, and putting his hands over his ears. He loved his mother, but he couldn’t help but wish she would fight back sometimes. Surely, he thought, she could at least do that._

_“I’m going to go see how he is, okay, Jack?” she said softly, smiling down at the eight-year-old boy. “You should go to sleep now, anyway.” She turned to go, but he crawled out from under the covers and latched onto her arm almost desperately._

_“Can’t you stay here?” he whispered, searching her face uneasily. He never understood why she would willingly face the man who caused her so much pain. Disentangling herself from her son’s grasp, Evelyn Napier tried to reassure him._

_“I’ll come check on you before I go to bed, okay? I just want to make sure your daddy’s all right.”_

_“But…” Jack wished he could say what he felt, but he couldn’t think of the words. If he had been a few years older, he might have said, “But I know he’s going to hurt you, and I’m scared of what he’ll do this time,” or “But why do you have to check on him if you know he’s all right and he’s just going to be angry if he thinks you’re in the way?”  
He wanted to say all those things, but he didn’t know what words to use. He only knew he felt a deep-set, unshakable fear that some called premonitions and some called instinct. But he couldn’t say anything, and his mother didn't understand. She smiled at him again, running a hand through his light brown hair. _

_“I’ll be back soon.” He tried to smile back, but it wavered and died on his lips. He closed his eyes as she walked out, listening to the door click shut and the voices outside begin to murmur. Steeling himself for the inevitable shouting and pleading that he knew would follow, Jack buried his head under the pillow and put his hands over his face. He couldn’t help but listen. He hated it, but he knew when it stopped, everything would be okay until the next night when his father came home again._

_Just like every time, he heard the voices grow louder. There was a far-away clink as something crashed to the floor…probably the empty beer can that sounded like a snapping neck. Jack tried to think of something else, but that uneasy feeling was stronger than it usually was, and something was whispering incessantly in his head to get up, to watch what was happening outside that door._

_It wasn’t curiosity that forced him out from under the covers and sent him padding barefoot across the cold floorboards to the keyhole, and it wasn’t because he wanted to know what would happen that he placed his hands on the doorknob, turning it softly. It was something he couldn’t explain, just like he couldn’t explain why he’d wanted his mother to stay away especially tonight; how he could feel, with a terrible clarity, that something bad would happen._

_He pushed the door open slowly, peering from behind the corner with wary eyes. His father was holding a broken glass bottle, the top jagged and shaped like the mountain peaks he’d seen on a picture a teacher showed him at school. But instead of white snow dusting the tips, the bottle glistened with red. Jack’s eyes darted from it to his mother, who was clutching her right arm protectively as she backed away from his husband. For a moment, her hand shifted, and Jack could see the angry cut that slashed across her upper arm, surrounded by a smeared, bloody handprint. His eyes, the ones his father always said looked just like hers, met his mother’s, and horror flashed across her face._

_“Jack, go back to your room.”_

_His father wheeled around, his fiery eyes locking on his son, who cowered back, his face pale with fear. He’d never seen the man like this before…having purposely avoided his rages as far back as he could remember, this was a new and frightening thing. He wanted to crawl back under the pillow and hide until this was all over, but then he remembered his mother’s arm and the blood on the bottle._

_“Don’t hurt her, daddy.” His voice trembled and came out as no more than a whisper, but his father heard it. He stepped forward, bottle still clutched in one hand._

_“What did you say?” His voice was deceptively calm. Jack bit down on his lip hard, and tasted the metallic flavor of blood in his mouth. He stepped back, shielding himself with the door._

_“Nothing.”_

_“Oh, you said something, you little twerp. I heard you. What did your mother teach you about telling the truth?” He came closer, and Jack’s hands felt cold as he clung to the doorknob. “Now tell me what you said.”_

_“I…” His father’s eyes looked like they could drill holes into him. “I just wanted…” His mother shook her head, a silent warning. “I wanted a drink of water.”_

_His father snorted derisively. “A drink of water, huh? Sounded an awful lot like something else. Since I’m interested in what you really said, I’ll give you one more chance to tell me the truth.”_

_Jack stared at the floor, hot tears forming behind his eyes. He hadn’t ever been this scared before. The ground rocked beneath him and everything felt numb. Faintly, he heard his mother’s voice._

_“Leave him alone, Patrick. He wasn’t trying…”_

_“Shut up, Evelyn!” the man snapped, but she continued, although her voice shook and Jack could hear her own fear._

_“Please just let him go back to bed, okay? He didn’t do anything wrong. You’re just…”_

_“I’m just what?” He snarled, his attention fully focused on her again. Jack tried to move, but he felt frozen in place. His heart felt like it might explode out of his chest, it was beating so quickly. As the tears in his eyes were blinked away, he saw his mother backing away from the hulking monster of a man that had just looked at him with so much hatred. The words broke loose before he could stop himself._

_“I said don’t hurt her!” His father turned his glare on him again, and Jack gasped in a breath. “That’s what I said before. I said don’t hurt her.”_

_“You,” Patrick Napier growled, pointing the broken bottle at the boy, “need to learn to shut your mouth.”_

_“You asked me what I said.” Jack felt like crying, but no tears came out. His mouth felt like cotton. “You asked me.”_

_“Well, thank you for your honesty.” the man said mockingly. Lightning-quick, he crossed the room and dragged the boy out from behind the door by one arm. His mother gave a choked cry. “What do you want as a reward?”_

_Jack was close enough to feel his father’s hot breath and see the unsettling glint in his eyes. His mother called it a “wild look” when she was happy, and after the two fought, she called it crazy. Jack thought it was both. Wild and crazy. He didn’t like it._

_“I don’t want anything.” he mumbled unhappily, trying to ignore his mother’s stifled sobs and pleas for his father to leave him alone. “I want to go back to my room.”_

_The man looked at him contemplatively. “No, I don’t think so.” he said, his voice terribly quiet. “I’ve had just about enough of you, Jackie-boy. You’re just like her.” He gestured with the bottle to his mother. “No backbone, but you just don’t know when to call it quits. Stupid, that’s what you are. Don’t you think, Jack?” Jack nodded, trembling. “What are you, kiddo?”_

_“I’m…” His voice broke as everything around him began to waver again. He was scared, so scared._

_“For God’s sake, Patrick, just leave him alone!”_

_His mother’s voice broke through it all, and Jack felt the strong hands let go of his arm as his father raised his fist. Closing his eyes, Jack heard the sickening crunch of something breaking, but not on him. His mother’s cry confirmed it. He ran behind the door, the tears finally breaking free and rolling down his sheet-white face without abandon. He couldn’t see anything, only a blurred mess filled with sounds he couldn’t even think about, and he wondered if this was what it was like to die._

_Then he heard his father laughing._

_A laugh just like the look in his eye. Wild. Crazy._

_He was killing her._

_The bottle crashed to the floor as he dragged her closer. The necklace she wore, the one Jack had made for her at school, broke apart. Plastic beads skittered and bounced across the floor, along with the jagged pieces of broken glass. Paralyzed with fear, Jack watched as his father picked up a long shard of the bottle, closing in on his wife. Her choked gasp cut off abruptly, as the glass flashed across her neck, and Jack finally pressed his hands to his eyes as he heard the dull thud on the floor. There was silence for a long time. He couldn’t hear his own breathing._

_“Come here.”_

_It was his father’s voice, cold and threatening. Jack couldn’t move. Not even if he wanted to._

_The voice didn’t care._

_“I said, come here.”_

_He shook his head frantically, not daring to uncover his eyes in case the man was standing right in front of him, holding the glass that dripped with blood._

_“I am giving you one last chance to listen to me, Jack. If you don’t, I will have to kill you too.” He sounded horribly reasonable. Rational. Not crazy._

_Somehow, Jack forced his hands away from his face and opened his eyes. He couldn’t help the terrified sob that escaped when he saw the shape on the floor that was his mother. Beads, glass, and blood littered the floor._

_“You have five seconds.”_

_Jack wasn’t sure how he did it, but somehow he forced himself to walk forward. The glass cut into his bare feet, and it felt like he was stepping on wasp stings. It hurt more than the time he’d been hit in the face by a baseball at recess and his eye had swollen shut. Not in all eight years of his life had he felt this much pain. But there was nowhere to go where the glass wasn’t. Or the blood. His lip trembled and tears hovered in his eyes. His father was watching him silently. Jack kept walking until he was almost a foot away, then stopped, his breath hitching and his hands clutching the front of his shirt._

_“I can’t.”_

_“You have to if you want to live.” His father’s voice was pitiless._

_Jack tried to keep from breaking down and sobbing. “I can’t, daddy. I can’t. It hurts too much.” He stared down at the blood on his feet with a kind of panicked fascination._

_“You see what happened to her, don’t you? Do you want to end up like that? Because if you don’t come here and listen to what I say, then that’s what’s going to happen.”_

_The crazy look was back. It propelled Jack forward until he was in arm’s reach of his father, who pulled him onto the couch beside him. Jack resisted for a moment, but gave in when he saw the man’s eye twitch angrily. Drawing shuddering breaths, he wrapped his arms around his chest and tried to ignore the pain from the broken glass._

_“Listen to me, Jack.” His father was watching him with a concentrated threat in his eyes. “If you so much as hint that this happened tonight, to anyone in the world in your entire lifetime, then I swear, I will kill you and I will make it hurt. Do you understand me?”_

_Jack nodded silently, trying not to cry again. His head was buzzing and he was trying as hard as he could to look at anything but the body that lay in the pool of blood._

_“That’s your warning, and you have no excuse to forget it,” the merciless voice continued. “Now, you are going to go back to bed, close your door, and go to sleep. In the morning, you’re going to school and you will not say anything to your teachers, even if they ask you. Do you understand?” Another nod. His voice grew furious. “Answer me!”_

_“Yes.” Jack whispered. His eyes were dry now, and the body was the only thing he could look at. He didn’t feel like crying anymore, only a sort of dull emptiness inside. He thought about_ Alice in Wonderland _still sitting on the nightstand and how his mother would never know how it ended. He wouldn’t either, because he was going to throw that book out the window and never think about it again._

_Even though it was all in front of him, everything that had just happened began to feel like a bad dream._

_“And you promise me that you’ll never speak about this?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Then go to bed. Turn off your light and stay there until morning unless you want what she got.” His father’s eyes looked like stone._

_Jack slowly got off the couch, wincing at the renewed pain from the broken glass. Maybe he wasn’t going to cry about the murder he'd just witnessed, but this pain was tangible, and it was easy to explain, and it wasn't too deep to feel. He tried to will the tears out of his eyes (“just like your mother’s, Jackie-boy”) and stumbled into the bedroom, shutting the door softly. He tried to steady his breath as he limped across the floor, picking up the book sitting beside the bed and holding it close to his chest for a moment before opening the fire escape door and stepping out, leaning over the balcony._

_Something fluttered above his head, and he ducked, stifling a cry as a bat flew past, dislodged from its perch. It was ugly and hulking and frightening, and he hated it. The cold air stung Jack's face as, in a sudden burst of anger, he flung the book at the bat. His aim was terrible and he missed entirely. The book plummeted to the ground, where it landed with a soft thump in the dumpster. The bat flew on, unharmed. Jack watched it disappear into the night, his face burning from the cold and hands gripping the icy railing of the fire escape._

_Although he couldn’t understand it himself entirely, Jack wanted to take out his anger on something. His father was out of the question, but the bat had been there, a willing victim, and it had gotten in his way. He loathed it with an unreasonable and inexplicable amount of hate. It wouldn’t even stay for him to really hit it with the book. It had just flown off like the selfish, idiot creature it was. There was nowhere for him to direct the pent-up, confused rage that was growing inside him. The rage of helplessness that his father had sparked._

_Jack climbed into bed, sitting on the edge. His face twisted as he tried to pick the pieces of glass from his skin, biting his tongue to stifle any sounds of pain that could escape. He heard his father in the other room, silently and methodically disposing of every shred of evidence that someone had been killed._

_After another hour ofdiligent self-remedying, Jack pulled the blanket up over his head and turned out the light. He lay in the dark with his eyes wide open, watching the lights on the distant Wayne Tower flicker and shine in uptown Gotham. The two prongs of the building stretched up into the sky, reminding him of the ears on the bat he had tried to hit with his book. That made him think of his mother again, and he rolled over to the other side of the bed, content to stare at the wall until morning, when the sun began pouring in through the open window._

_Outside in the garbage dumpster, the pages of the book fluttered open in the night breeze, displaying a picture of the Cheshire Cat, signature wide grin stretching from ear to ear. Lettering flowed in smooth calligraphy down the page, black and shiny in the watery, smoke-tainted moonlight._

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here.”

 

 

 

_\+ + + + + + +_

 

 

_Two Years Earlier *earlier from the present day, not from the last flashback*_

 

_Jack tossed the match into the gutter and watched the cigarette smoke drift off into the sky. Leaning his head back against the cold bricks of the alley wall, he allowed himself to close his eyes for a split second and not worry about anyone around him._

_It turned out to be a mistake._

_“Hey, kid.”_

_Jack opened his eyes to see a young man around his age standing in front of him. He was tall and lanky, with greasy hair that hung to his shoulders and smudged eyeliner. Jack rolled his eyes. As if this punk actually thought he could intimidate him. He decided to ignore the intruder._

_“I’m talkin’ to you.” The other kicked Jack in the leg, and the latter narrowed his eyes._

_“What do you want?”_

_“My friends and me are lookin’ for someone to do a little job. Uptown. Gotta be someone who’ll blend in.”_

_“And you’re asking me? I’m flattered, but no.” Jack took a drag on the cigarette and stood up. “Also, don’t kick me again or you’ll be eating out of a feeding tube for the rest of your life.”_

_A flicker of uncertainty crossed the newcomer’s gaunt face for a moment, then he resumed his former confidence. “Sure you won’t reconsider? My friends can be very persuasive.”_

_“Where’d you pick up that line? From every other person who’s ever made a threat?” Jack gave him a wry glance. “Not to critique your work, but try some originality next time.” He turned to leave and almost walked right into a waiting knife, held by another equally punk boy. This one had spiked green hair and a stained red leather jacket. Jack grimaced. “Who are you, the Grinch that stole Christmas?” The boy glared. “What do you want?”_

_“I told you, a job.” the first boy stepped up behind him. Jack was tall, but this guy was taller, and even though he was thin, he had enough muscle on him to hint that a fistfight might not be the best bet for escape. “Uptown."_

_“Okay, who are you?” Jack shook his head. “Besides the fact you think I’ll blend in, or whatever, why did you pick me?”_

_The one in the back gave him a shove, and if he had’t sidestepped, Jack might have been nearly impaled on the knife the other held out. “You’re the first guy we’ve come across. Nothing special about you. Now, are you gonna do the job or are you gonna say no and let my boy here turn you into street meat?”_

_“Why don’t you tell me what the job is first?” Jack asked carefully, looking for a way out. It wasn’t that he had any qualms taking on one task from these morons…they were as dumb as they looked, and doubtless it was something harmless. But he hated going uptown…it reminded him of three years ago when he’d felt something that was maybe close to love._

_Something he hadn’t thought about in a long time._

_“Nothin’ you can’t handle.” the first boy said confidently. “Just so long as you’re not chicken. We need ya to bring a little something to a guy at Wayne Enterprises. You know the place?”_

_Jack nodded. He knew Wayne Enterprises. Who in the city didn’t? But beyond the name, the company was of little consequence to his life. He couldn’t care less about it._

_“Well, we’ve got a guy workin’ there who’s set up to be in charge of a lotta cash. As long as we can get him the key to the back door of a warehouse, we’re set for life. We need you to bring him that key, got it?”_

_Jack almost scoffed. “Why can’t you do it? Meet him somewhere after work hours.”_

_“They watch their people like hawks.” the boy with the knife interrupted. “You just need to meet him on the street and say Joe and Chris sent ya. Then give him the key and get lost.”_

_“And what do I get in return?”_

_“Your life.”_

_Jack smiled. “Thanks for that, guys. Where’s the key?”_

_The boy with the jacket reached into his pocket and produced a flat silver key, the Wayne Enterprises “W" emblazoned on it. Jack took it, dropping it into his own pocket. His hand rested there for a moment, searching._

_“Oh, by the way,” Casually, almost uninterestedly, Jack reached out with his free hand in a sudden move and snatched the knife from the second boy’s grasp, tossing it to the side. His other hand emerged from his pocket, gripping a switchblade handle. He clicked it open and rounded on the first boy, the blade slicing across the back of his hand. The other gave a yelp and leapt back, clutching at his hand as blood seeped though his fingers. Jack turned to the second boy, who had retrieved his knife and was standing in a wary stance. Jack grabbed the hand that held the knife by the wrist, ignoring the sharp sting as the blade lightly grazed his inner arm, and twisted the boy’s thin wrist until he dropped the weapon with a grunt of pain. Jack turned back to the boy with the eyeliner and long hair, holding the knife out._

_“I don’t work for anyone. I’m not on anyone’s side but my own. And if you come near me again, I’ll cut your lungs out and make you eat them.” He didn’t know where he’d heard that threat before, but was surprised at how easily it came out. The two boys backed away, genuine terror in their eyes. Jack clicked the knife shut and walked away, out of the alley. He felt calm, not even the faintest tremble of adrenaline. The shallow cut on his arm didn’t even hurt. There was a strange, surreal serenity like a dream that clouded his mind. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but it made him feel powerful, and he liked it._

_He kept walking with no real destination. After losing his job at the library (“You keep coming in here all beat up like that and you’ll scare away the kids.” the manager had told him, unable to hide the pity in her dark eyes. Jack had hated her for that pity.) there had been no place to get a job. But his father was making enough money as it was, working for a few well-known bigwig mob bosses, and he didn’t care where Jack went when he left the house. That left him plenty of time to wander the city, aimless and bored, for most of the day every day._

_Still, it was better than staying home._

_He reached midtown when he realized he still had the key in his pocket. Remembering what the two punks in the alley had said about it leading to a place in Wayne Enterprises with a stash of money, he pulled it out and looked it over. He could try and find the lock that fit the key himself, or he could find the guy they were giving it to and sell it for a few hundred dollars. Maybe that would placate his dad for a week or so and Jack could have some peace of mind, however temporary._

_Of course, that would entail going uptown._

_Jack shook his head at his own stubbornness. It had been three years…he needed to move on. Jeannie had likely forgotten all about him and was now happily dating some loser from her highbrow school. Some rich guy who could give her a nice house and had a real job that he worked at nine to five. Someone ordinary and good._

_Well, whatever the case, he wasn’t going to hide anymore. The key could bring in a good deal of money, and the odds of seeing Jeannie in the process were slim to none. There were thousands of people in Gotham…there was no way he would run into her._

_It was almost five o’clock when he was close enough to uptown to clearly see the Wayne Enterprises building looming up into the nearby sky. Dusk was settling as people rushed past him, in a hurry to get home. Trying to weave his way through the crowds as inconspicuously as possible, Jack realized he didn’t even know what the guy who wanted the key looked like. He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. At this point, he might as well drop it off in the nearest trash bin and head home._

_“Jack?”_

_He froze._

_The odds were, apparently, not in his favor._

_“Jack, is that you?”  
He turned around reluctantly, trying to think of an excuse to run away. Jeannie was standing there, looking just like she had three years ago, except she wasn’t in a school uniform anymore, and she was standing next to a tall boy with dark hair and an expensive-looking sweater._

There, _Jack thought bitterly,_ is the nice nine-to-five rich loser. 

_He started to say something, then stopped, nervously playing with the key in his hands. Why had he come up here anyway? Why hadn’t he just thrown the key away in the first place and forgotten all about it?_

_Suddenly he was engulfed in a hug as arms wrapped gently around him. Yes, this was her, wearing the same apple perfume and with those same whisky-brown eyes. He swallowed, holding back any words he wished he could say, uncomfortably conscious of the young man watching them questioningly. He kept his arms stiff at his sides, although every part of him ached to hug her back._

_“Jeannie…”_

_She pulled away, clutching his hand eagerly. “Jack, I can’t believe it’s you! I can’t believe it.”_

_He let his hand rest in hers for a brief, wonderful moment before tugging it away. A flash of hurt confusion passed through her eyes. “Jeannie, it’s…”_

_She suddenly straightened up, some of the light going out of her eyes and her animated features becoming more refined. “Oh, Jack, this is Mike.”_

_The young man stepped up beside her, holding out a well-manicured hand. “Mike Reinhart. Jeannie’s boyfriend. Pleased to meet you, Jack…?”_

_“Jack Napier.” he mumbled, taking the proffered hand without much enthusiasm. He didn’t try to smile…what was the point? It wasn’t as if he needed to impress this guy. Jeannie cleared her throat._

_“Jack was my friend who worked at the library when I was in high school.” she explained, glancing at him affectionately. The look burned into Jack and he wanted to run away. Mike, unaware of the situation, raised an inquiring eyebrow._

_“Oh? Which library? The one at the school?”_

_Jack felt his face grow hot. “Nope. The one in the Narrows.” He tried to look less defensive, but gave up and decided to stare at the ground instead, hands shoved back into his pockets._

_“Oh, I see.”_

_“Well,” Jeannie spoke up, interrupting the uncomfortable silence that had descended, “what have you been up to, Jack?”_

_“Nothing.” He gripped the key in his hand, the edges digging into his palm as he tried to think of an excuse to leave. He’d spent three years trying to forget her, and it was unspeakably cruel of fate to deal him this hand._

_The confident smile on Jeannie’s face wavered and fell at his unfriendly tone. “Oh. Um…well, Mike and I were just heading to dinner. We’ve got reservations at a place near here. It was…” Jack looked up to see her watching him, uncertainty clouding her eyes, “it was nice to see you, Jack.”_

_He nodded silently, not trusting his voice to be steady enough to speak. They walked past him, Jeannie’s arm brushing against his, sending shivers down through his hand. Every part of him wanted to run after them, to beg her to come back, but he couldn’t. Not after he had been the one to push her away._

_He pulled the key from his pocket and dropped it into a nearby gutter, listening to the faint clang as it knocked against the pipes below. It wasn’t worth the effort to try and sell it off, not when the only thing he wanted to do was run back home, retreat back to the Narrows with the smoke-clouded streets and dilapidated buildings and cracked sidewalks. He hated it, but it was home. It was where he belonged._

_Not here, and not with her._

_Never with her._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R&R and let me know what you think!


	13. Chapter Twelve

_What motivates you?_

Jack stared through the bars with heavy eyes. The cell was quiet, aside from the steady drip of water from the leak in the ceiling. In the silence, it sounded like a drum.

_Power, I guess. Money._

_What about love?_

The odds of all four of them getting out of this prison alive were ridiculously low. Even if they came up with a foolproof plan, none of them knew the layout of this place, or how many people were roaming around inside it. They had no weapons, no shields, and no directions. At least someone wasn’t going to make it, that was a given.

_I don’t know._

The water sounded louder tonight than it usually did, or maybe because it was distracting him from thinking. Jack put his hands over his ears, like he had when he was a child and his father’s shouting had been too much to listen to. When his mother’s cries and pleas had burned themselves into his memory like a brand.

_You’ve got to get out of here._

He thought about Jeannie, wondering where he was. What had she thought, after her last letter had been sent back, maybe accompanied by a note that explained Jack had gone missing, that they had no word or location? 

Maybe he was presumed dead.

He couldn’t help the hoarse laugh that slipped through his lips. Dead to the world, that was him. That was all of them. No one was coming to help, he’d accepted that by now.

_You’ve got to make it on your own, or you don’t make it at all._

_You have to escape._

_For her._

The guards had knives and guns and all kinds of weapons. Not one of the four soldiers had anything to defend themselves with. Even if they got out, they’d be mowed down before they ever saw the light of day again.

_You’ve got to try. You have to._

Jack frowned in concentration. His mind buzzed with a thousand different ways to escape from the prison, each one yielding the same result: they weren’t all going to make it. 

_Someone has to make a sacrifice._

That nagging little voice in his head had been getting stronger lately. In the four months they had spent in the prison, Jack had tried with growing desperation to smother it, to ignore the things it whispered to him late at night, when he sat staring up at the window and remembering against his will the way the truckload of his fellow soldiers had gone up in flames.

_You killed them, you make the sacrifice._

Why did it have to be like that? Why couldn’t everyone get what they wanted? They all had reasons for wanting to get out; no one should have to die. 

There had to be some way. 

_You’ll find a way._ The voice was encouraging now, and Jack listened to it suspiciously. It was rarely complimentary. _You always do._ There were the flames again, but they weren’t from the truck. Jack saw them in his mind’s eyes, licking through the windows of the apartment building like hungry animals, the sound roaring in his ears as he watched with inexplicable passiveness.

_Passiveness? Just say what it was. Enjoyment. You can say that here, no one’s gonna hear you inside your own head. It’s just you and me. It’s always been just you and me, Jack._

The voice was confident, charismatic. Despite his better judgement, Jack wanted to agree with it. He wished he could have that same strength. That freedom to say what he felt, bluntly and without restraint. 

Because it was true, what the voice said. Sometimes, he liked to watch it burn.

_No. Not me. I did what had to be done. I did it for her._

_For love._

He shook his head, turning his thoughts back to the task at hand. Getting out of this cell, and then out of whatever bunker of prison or wherever they were. And then back home, where he belonged.

Back to Gotham.

A half-formulated thought had been brewing in the back of his mind for the past three days, a barely conceived idea that, if he could develop it properly, might just result in a way for them to get out. He was less than unsure about it himself, and hadn’t even voiced the possibility to anyone else, for fear that the guards would hear it. But as time ticked by and no one came to rescue them, Jack began to realize that their variety of options were much slimmer than he had first thought, and maybe his idea wasn't too far-fetched for the situation they were in.

The only problem was, he would have to trust the others to follow directions and not screw it up. And that was the hardest part. Trust did not come easily to Jack, and even if he liked the others with moderate friendliness, he couldn’t bring himself to place his own life in their hands. Maybe it was just selfish and unkind to think that, but he couldn’t quite make himself believe that they would come back for him if they agreed to his plan. Some small part ofhim wouldn’t stop wondering, with a doubt that ate away at him, if they would leave him and escape on their own. 

After all, he wasn’t sure that he himself wouldn’t do that too, if given the option.

_Self-preservation, Jack. That’s what it’s called. You wouldn’t be abandoning them, you’d be saving yourself._

But when he was the one being potentially left behind, it seemed a lot less like self-preservation and a lot more like abandonment.

_Either way, you gotta tell them. You’re the only one who can get them out of here, and yourself. Otherwise those guards are just gonna kill you all. And you’ll never see her again._

He thought about the guard with the knife, the one who had said something about how they punished prisoners in a way that Jack hadn’t fully understood but could comprehend the threat well enough. If one of them was left behind, then there was no question that _something_ unpleasant would happen to them, even if no one knew what it was. Jack buried his face in his hands. There weren’t any guards around right then…he could wake the others up and tell them what he was thinking. Maybe they would just say it was too risky and that they should wait until something better arose.

But then again, they could say yes.

“Hey, Napier,” Adams’ voice cut through the silence. Jack saw the other soldier sitting up, watching him with sleep-blurred eyes. “Toss me a match, would ya?”

Jack picked up the half-empty matchbox slowly, torn between saying anything and keeping his thoughts to himself. Adams glanced at him curiously, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.

“What's on your mind?”

He had to say something. It was the only way they could make it out of this place alive. Most of them, at least.

Passing Adams the match, Jack told him his plan.

 

\+ + + + + + 

 

_Jack stood in front of the pay phone sitting next to the grimy bus stop. Scrawled graffiti and chewed-up gum littered the entire place, but he paid no attention to any of it. Someone walked past, muddy water spraying up from their hurried steps. Jack didn’t bother to move out of the way. He was looking at the piece of worn paper he held in his hands, studying the ten numbers scrawled on the crumpled Alcoholics Anonymous flyer he’d torn so it was a tiny strip with only the writing left. He’d kept it in the nightstand for three years, not sure why he hadn’t thrown it away, yet fully and unquestionably knowing exactly why he’d kept it._

You just can’t give up, can you? _he thought wryly, not without a strong dose of self-consciousness. What would happen if she just hung up on him? She had every right to, after the way he’d acted when he’d seen her uptown. She probably thought he was the biggest jerk in the universe._

_Somehow or another, he found himself sliding the dimes into the slot of the payphone and picking it up. His fingers felt numb as he dialed in the numbers, shoving the paper back into his pocket almost guiltily. He shifted his feet and cleared his throat, not even sure what he was going to say._

_He just wanted to hear her voice again._

_When she spoke, he gripped the phone so tight that his knuckles went white. “Hello?”_

_He was silent, listening to her breathe. Closing his eyes, he wondered what it would have been like if he hadn’t tried to drive her off._

_He wondered that every day._

_He tried not to._

_“Hello, is there someone there?” she tried again, and any half-formed things that Jack had wanted to say were gone. There was nothing he_ could _say, no excuse he could come up with, other than that he had made a mistake._

_Again._

_God, he made so many mistakes._

_“I can hear you on the other end. Who is this?” She spoke louder this time, as if she wasn’t sure if her voice was coming through._

_“I…” His voice caught in his throat, but she heard it._

_“Jack?” she asked immediately, and something in her tone changed. Grew wary, almost. He wanted to hang up and run as far away as he could. “Jack, is that you?”_

_“Yes.” he said softly, feeling like an idiot. She probably thought he was one now._

_“Are you okay? Why did you call?” At least she wasn’t questioning how he had her phone number. Maybe she remembered giving it to him all those years ago. Maybe, or maybe she just wasn’t thinking about it._

_“I’m okay.” He hesitated. “I just…” Why was this so hard? He just wanted to talk to her. “I wanted to say sorry about yesterday. I wasn’t…I guess I wasn’t very friendly. I’m sorry.”_

_“Hey, it’s fine.” she said reassuringly, although the wariness in her tone wasn’t quite gone. “Don’t worry about it. You were probably just surprised.”_

_“Yeah.” Or overcome with guilt. Either way. Didn’t matter which. “I was surprised to see you after so long.”_

_“You know I never forgot about you.” she said softly, and his heart began pounding again. Jack tried to ignore it. She’d moved on, and he needed to as well. “I thought about you a lot.”_

_“Me too.”_ Pull it together, you sound like a lovesick moron _. He cleared his throat again. “I…uh…”_ I wish things had been different. I wish I hadn’t done what I did. I wish I’d had the courage to let you stay. _“Well, I just wanted to call and say…” Say what? “Say that I’m sorry.”_

_She paused. “Jack, I said it’s okay.” They were both silent for half a minute. He heard voices in the background. “Hey, I was wondering, do you want to get together sometime, maybe? I know what you said last time, but I was wondering, since you called..."_

_He closed his eyes. The deeply rooted fear of something happening to her rose up again, unconquerable and persistent. But something made him push it away. “Um…I guess. If you really want.”_

_Her voice became careful again. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”_

_“No, it’s just that…I mean, yes, I’d like to. If you can.”_

_“Okay.” Her tone changed, became eager through the caution. “I think I can get out of the house next week. It’s been a while since…well, since last time I saw you, and I can go out when I feel like it. I’ll make up some story.”_

_“I don’t want you to get in trouble…” he said hurriedly, but she interrupted him._

_“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. Can you meet next week?”_

_His head spun. Was this really happening? After so long of trying to get over it all, he was letting her back into his life? Why? “Uh, yeah, I think so. Where do you want to…um…”_

_“Are you still working at the library?”_

_“No.” He hesitated again. “But we can meet there if you want.”_

_“Okay!” She had never sounded so excited before. Something twisted inside him. He wanted to share her excitement, but he couldn’t feel anything. “I have to go now, Jack. I’ll see you next week.”_

_“Okay.” he said softly, listening to her hang up the phone. He set the one he held back on the receiver, noticing the tremor in his hand. Why was it that he could be so calm, so passive around anyone else, but with Jeannie, he felt like a moronic clown? She was just like anyone else, right?_

_No, she wasn’t, he told himself. She was special and one of a kind and not his. Never his. She had her own life, and she was just letting him in to be kind. That was all. He wasn’t going to let himself think it was more than that, because it would only hurt all the more if he did._

 

_\+ + + + +_

_The wind whipped around them, free from the usual dust and grime that clogged it down below. Jeannie stared out over the staggering, jumbled silhouette of the Narrows rooftops, chimneys and antennae sticking out occasionally among the water tanks and standardized satellite dishes that occupied almost every other roof. "It's kind of beautiful up here."_

_Jack leaned back on his wrists, his hands pressed against the cool, rough cement. “I think so, too.”_

_She glanced over at him. “Do you come up here a lot?”_

_He shrugged. “I used to. Not so much anymore. I forgot how much I liked it.”_

_“I’m glad you brought me here.” she smiled. He looked at her uneasily._

_“Why did you come here?” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “After I told you to leave and then acted like an idiot the other day and then called you out of nowhere…why do you stick around?” The words tumbled out of his mouth in a confused mess, and he turned away, his face flushing._

_“I don’t know, to be honest.” she said quietly. The wind blew her hair into her face and she brushed it away with her hand. “Do you want to know the truth?”_

_“Probably not, but tell me anyway.”_

_“It’s gonna be blunt.”_

_“I can handle it.” He had no idea if he could._

_Her forehead creased as she looked back out over the rooftops, trying to find the right words. “I keep telling myself that there’s something about you I don’t quite get. That I should just give up and leave you alone. Maybe that would be best for us. I get the feeling that we’re not supposed to be together, and yet…”_

_“You can’t stay away.” Jack murmured, catching her gaze. He licked his lips nervously. “I know, cause I feel the same way.”_

_“That’s part of the reason why I came here tonight. Because I had to. When I heard your voice, I just felt like if I didn’t see you in person, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.” She spoke hesitantly, her usual candid tone less sure than usual. “But Jack…I don’t know. About us, I mean. You know about Mike, and my parents expect us to settle down sometime soon and start a family together. A nice, normal, ordinary family.” Her voice grew softer, and her eyes reflected the blaze of the setting sun. “And a part of me wants that, you know? Mike’s a good guy, and everyone likes him.”_

_“I hate him.” Jack mumbled. Jeannie looked at him in surprise. Jack shrugged self-consciously. “I’m sorry, but if we’re telling the truth, then I hate him. He’s…” He looked away. “He’s everything I want to be. For you.”_

_Sitting on the roof of the apartment, their only witnesses the scavenger birds that flocked on the chimneys, Jack found that he could speak his mind without thinking, without worrying what she would say. The fear and uncertainty melted away, leaving him with a strange sense of freedom he’d never felt before. Confidence. The way he felt when the two boys in the alley had threatened him and he’d clicked open the switchblade. It was as if something was set free inside him, something that transformed him, if only for a moment, into the person he wanted to be. Someone who could take care of her and not be scared of anything._

_“I know, Jack.” Jeannie whispered, her eyes distant and, Jack realized, sad. “But I don’t want you to be him. You’re…well, you’re_ you, _and I’d rather be with you for the rest of my life if I could. It’s just…I don’t know how to make it happen, you know? It’s been three years.” She turned toward him, fixing him with a searching stare. “Why did you call me?”_

_Jack fumbled for the right words. “I…I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to hear your voice again. I was trying to forget you, but it doesn’t seem like that’s gonna be able to happen.” He sighed, pulling his gaze away. “I shouldn’t have called you. I should have left you alone, too. You’ve moved on without me, and it’s selfish of me to try and get you back after I’ve been so awful to you.”_

_“You want me back?” she asked, maybe too quickly. Jack’s face burned. Had he said that aloud? For a moment, he considered backtracking, but it was too late for that._

_“Uh…” A tentative smile lit up her face as he tried to speak. She was so beautiful when she smiled. Jack didn’t know what angels looked like, but it was probably like her. “I shouldn’t have said that.” he said softly. “You have…” He couldn’t bring himself to say his name, “you have someone else now. And I don’t…I don’t know if we could just be friends, because I…” He trailed off. What had possessed him to say all that? He’d never been so open, so candid in front of anyone before. What was suddenly so different? Was it his certainty that this relationship would go nowhere that prompted him to say these things? Whatever it was, he couldn't go back on it now._

_“What, Jack? What is it?” She looked at him, and he could see she knew. Maybe she had always known._

_“I love you, Jeannie.” It came out as no more than a breath, more like a gasp. It was exhausting and exhilarating and awful all at once. It didn’t matter if he loved her, because she didn't love him back, she’d already found someone else who was better, who could do things that Jack couldn’t, and that was what she deserved. What she needed._

_“Guess what, Jack?” She was so close to him now that he could see the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, the powdery champagne-colored eyeshadow she’d brushed across her eyelids that glimmered faintly in the evening light. He held his breath. “I think I might…I think I love you too.”_

_He frowned. “But you…you and Mike…I thought you were a done deal.”_

_She laughed, a little uncertainly. “Everyone thinks we are. I thought so, too, before I saw you again. I guess I should thank you. I might’ve been stuck with a guy I don’t love for a long time if you hadn’t gotten in the way.”_

_“Sorry.” he said automatically, and she shook her head forcefully._

_“Don’t. Don’t apologize to me, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong, Jack.” She held up a hand, stopping him from saying anything further. “And don’t apologize for who you are. Whoever that is.”_

_How had she known exactly what he was thinking? Then again, how could she_ not _, when she looked at him with such depth and understanding in her eyes? It was as if she was staring into his soul, and it was as frightening as it was wonderful._

_“I thought about you so much, Jack. Even after you pushed me away, I wanted to come back. I only didn’t because I didn’t want you to worry. Now that you’re back, I’d choose you over anyone else in a heartbeat. No matter what.”_

_“We can’t change things.” he said, and he hated how her face clouded. “It’s been three years, but it’s probably safe to say your father would kill me if you left the other guy for me.” The words burned his throat like acid, but he couldn’t let himself believe in something impossible. It would only hurt more once it was over._

_“I didn’t think you’d be scared of my dad.” she said gently, with tentative humor. Jack tried to backpedal._

_“No, I meant for you…I don't want you choosing me over your own family.”_

_“I know who I am, Jack, and I know who I love.” She looked at him with a seriousness he’d never seen before in his eyes. “Sometimes you can just tell, you know? I don’t usually believe in love at first sight and all that garbage, but I think…” They were so close now, and he was losing himself in his eyes. “I think sometimes it might be true.”_

_“You get too close, you might get hurt.” he said quietly. “My…I know people. People who would hurt you. Maybe try to kill you. It’s not safe.”_

_“Love isn’t safe. I’m not scared of them. You pushed me away one time already because of that, and I won’t let it happen again. I won’t let you do it again.”_

_His heart banged against his ribcage and he felt her soft breath on his face. He wanted to warn her, to list off all the reasons why she was placing herself in the line of fire. How, if she wanted to live the life she wanted, this wasn’t the place. But none of it would come out.“I don’t know anything about love. I’ve never…I’ve never loved anyone before this.”_

_“I don’t think I have either. Not in this way, at least.” Jeannie laughed, drawing back. “You want to know something, Jack?”_

_“What?” He couldn’t pull his gaze away from her face._

_“I think I could be scared of you. I think you could be dangerous.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make me love you any less, but it makes me wonder what it is about you. Why do I feel like that?”_

_“You’re asking me?” he frowned, confused. She nodded thoughtfully._

_“I was wondering if you’d know the answer. You’re the only one who knows yourself.”_

_“I told you once before, I don’t know who I am. I’m just…no one, really. I don’t think I’m dangerous.” He thought about how he’d enjoyed threatening the two punks in the alley, how they’d looked at him with something deeper than fear in their eyes. Had they seen it too? Whatever she’d seen? “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”_

Is that true, Jack? Are you sure about that?

_He frowned at the sudden thought, the sudden, sharp jab at his own belief. Why would it not be true? It was just him doubting himself, that was all._

_Jeannie didn’t notice the shift in his expression. “I don’t know why I feel like that. I know you’re a good person. And you know, dangerous doesn’t mean bad. It just means…it means I’m not sure what to think. All I know is that I love you, Jack, and I’ll never stop loving you.”_

_It sounded so strange, hearing those words spoken to him. No one had ever told him they loved him before, aside form his mother's occasional reassurance. But that had been a long time ago, and Jack had almost forgotten what it was liked to know someone loved him, really loved him without strings attached, without hesitation._

_“I’ve never…” His voice started to shake. “I’ve never had anyone…never had someone say that before. Not to me.”_

_She reached out, placing her hand on his. Her palm was soft, warm, reassuring. An anchor in the storm. “Then I’ll say it as much as I can. I won’t let you stop hearing it.” They were silent for a long moment, listening to the bustle of traffic and shouts below on the streets. Down in the world. But they weren’t there right now. They were in heaven, away from the dust and the smoke and the grime and the blood of the city. Here, they could do anything._

_“I don’t know how to make this work, Jeannie.” he whispered. “I don’t know. I want to give you everything I can, but I can’t think of any way to make anything better. I don’t have anything to give you.”_

_“I don’t want anything from you, Jack. I’m not in it for the win. I only want you. I want you to realize that I love you, and that you have me forever.”_

_“You mean it?” He knew she meant it, but some part of him, deep inside, couldn’t quite grasp that reality. It was too alien to him, too absurd. “You really mean that?”_

_“Until every last star in the galaxy dies.” she murmured, their fingers intertwining. The wind howled around them, but it didn’t feel cold. Not anymore. “You’ll always have me.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that last line is inspired by an aesthetic writing prompt i found, don't sue
> 
> r&r i'd love to hear your comments!


	14. Chapter Thirteen

_“Oh, Jack, what happened?” Jeannie nearly gasped, running to him across the roof. The sun was setting, casting long shadows over them, and her hair looked like fire when the light hit it. Jack paused for a moment to look at her, amazed as he always was at how beautiful she could be. Who’d ever have thought he, of all people, could be such a lovesick idiot? Then he remembered she’d asked him a question, and her hand was currently pressed against the side of his face, swollen and discolored from a bruise. He jerked away, maybe too quickly._

_“Nothing. Just an accident.”_

_She stared, disappointment written across her face. “Jack, you know you don’t have to lie to me.”_

_“I know.” he said shortly, pushing past her. They’d been meeting on the roof almost every day for the past six months, and every time they’d passed each other on the stairs inside the building, hurrying up to meet one another, Jeannie had tried to stop him to talk. But Jack always made her keep walking, almost running, until they were securely on the roof with the door closed behind them. She’d asked him the first few times why they couldn’t just meet in his apartment, that surely it wasn’t a problem, but he’d always say something about how his father lived there too and didn’t like Jack bringing home friends while he was trying to work. She had believed it at first, but after seeing the nervous glances he cast at the closed door as he passed it, the seemingly constant appearance of cuts and bruises he sported that he gave only the most vague explanations for, she began to suspect it wasn’t just that._

_She hadn’t said anything until today, because he’d always cut her off when she tried to ask, but sometimes enough was enough._

_“Jack, who’s doing this to you?” she asked, looking him square in the face. His gaze fell away, one eye almost swollen shut, and his shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly._

_“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” He tried to change the subject. “Have you talked to Mike yet? Or your parents?” Half a year had gone by, and Jeannie hadn’t yet broken the news to anyone else that she was splitting with Mike for good, although she’d dropped hints, and Jack was growing worried. Not for himself, but because he knew how much her parents were set on her settling down with a good guy. The longer she waited, the harsher the blow would be to them._

_“No, I haven’t. I’m going to next week, okay? I just need to figure it all out.” She followed him to the edge of the roof and sat down on the ledge, legs dangling over the edge. Jeannie hadn’t dared to do anything so risky before they started meeting up here, but after Jack had shown her that it wasn’t really that scary once she got used to it, she’d given in and tried it. Now she stared down at the clogged mess of taxis and pedestrians lining the streets below, hazy and blurred through the smoke. Jack sat down beside her, lighting a cigarette and tossing the match over the edge. Jeannie surveyed his face again, serious and withdrawn, then tried to revisit the topic. She knew, judging by his expression, that it was dangerous territory, but she wasn’t able to go on without answers any longer._

_“You know you can trust me. Why won’t you talk to me about this?”_

_“It’s my problem. I don’t need to talk to anyone about it.” he insisted, his voice cold. Jeannie had gotten used to this sort of exchange. She knew Jack wasn’t talkative in the least, and when she tried to get him out of his shell, it was always met with resistance. She’d gotten the message very early on that he was used to keeping to himself, and anything that went against that norm of his was immediately categorized as social uncharted waters. His silence wasn’t hostile, she knew, only born of a desire to stay quiet and out of sight. Living life as a shadow._

_But sometimes, she did wish he would open up a bit more around her. Only so she could help him. Sometimes she felt so terribly useless._

_Pushing those thoughts aside, Jeannie inched closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder. Jack tensed at the contact, as he always did, but she didn’t feel the relaxation that usually followed. He held himself stiffly, as if afraid to even breathe. She sat up straight, looking at him with worry creasing her forehead._

_“It’s your father, isn’t it?”_

_She had guessed the truth a long time ago, but saying it aloud made it real, a statement that hung in the air like a grenade who’s pin had just been pulled. The tension vibrated between them and Jack looked away quickly, his hair falling over the bruise on his face. It was too long for Jeannie’s taste (“You should at least let me pay for you to go to a decent barber or something” she’d told him once or twice) but he always shrugged her protests away. Eventually she'd given up. Compared to everything else, it was the opposite of a big deal._

_The silence was stifling. Jeannie felt her heartbeat speed up. Jack still didn’t look at her, his fingers clutching the cigarette too tightly. She could see the taut line of his jaw and knew he didn’t want to talk about it, but it wasn’t something she could ignore any longer._

_“You could go to the police. They could help you.”_

_He finally turned to look at her, his expression laden with scorn. He suddenly looked much older than his twenty-three years, and his eyes were hollow. “Oh yeah? And how does that work out? They either give him a warning and leave him alone, and then it’s just a waiting game to be murdered. Or they take him away and lock him up again and I get kicked out of the apartment for not paying the debts. Neither one looks all that great to me, sorry.” His voice was calm, but she sensed to anger hidden beneath it. The helplessness he couldn’t help but feel._

_“There’s got to be some way to stop him. I don’t want you to get hurt, Jack. I know you can take care of yourself, but this’ll go on forever unless you find a way out. Bullies don’t like to give up their targets.”_

_He shrugged, exasperated, his eyes drifting back to the ground below. “I have you. That’s enough to make me happy.”_

_“But Jack, you’ve got to think realistically.” She tried to sound reasonable. “What if we want to take this further, okay? If you’re serious about this relationship, then there are things you need to think about. I know you want to settle down somewhere, have a nice life with a nice family, but if that man is still in your life by then, that’s not gonna happen for you. He’s not going to leave you alone.”_

_“I’ll listen to a realistic solution if you think of one.” he said drily. She knew his coldness was just to hide whatever he was really feeling. Fear, maybe, or anger. Injustice. She knew_ she _felt all those things._

_“You could stand up to him.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were the wrong ones. Jack stood up abruptly, his expression tortured. He dropped the cigarette on the ground and crushed it beneath his heel, turning to walk away. Jeannie got up and hurried after him. “Jack, wait! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know anything about what it’s like to live like that, and I'm sorry for suggesting…"_

_He wheeled around to face her, his eyes dark. She took a step back. The words she’d spoken six months ago echoed in her ear._

I think I could be scared of you. I think you could be dangerous.

_Then the darkness almost faded away, his brown eyes losing their momentary hostility. But if Jeannie looked closely, she could still see the look that hung like a thundercloud in his expression. Carefully hidden, but still there._

_He stared at her for a long moment, a million unreadable emotions flitting across his face before he finally began to smile. Usually when he smiled, it make her heart flip almost giddily. It was such a rare treat to see him lose his usual serious expression, but there was something different this time. He was smiling like he knew a secret that she didn’t, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was._

_“Jack…?”_

_He took her hand. The shadows loomed, sharp and black, across the rooftop. Jeannie could hear her heart beating above the constant roar of the city noise below. Jack continued to smile, but it was softer now, more like how he usually looked at her. His voice, too, when he spoke, was gentle. Almost calmer than she had ever heard him before._

_“Don’t be sorry.”_

 

_\+ + + + + +_

 

_It wasn’t for him, he kept telling himself as he pulled the bottle of whisky off the top of the dented fridge, his face twisting in revulsion as he watched the glimmering amber liquid slosh against the sides of the glass. Not his own satisfaction, not his own personal desire for revenge. Not an act of hatred or emotion._

_It was for her._

_And it had to be done._

_That was all._

_As he twisted the lid off and began to pour the alcohol onto the splintery wood floor and the faded, unraveling rug, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. At least, he tried to feel nothing._

_Really, he could barely hold the bottle as his hands began to shake with tension. One moment he was certain of his actions, not a doubt in his head that he would succeed, that this was the right thing to do. And then another side of him would take hold, screaming at him to stop, did he have a death wish? Did he, in some twisted way, invite the threat of pain? Was that why he was creating a battleground for a war he knew he would lose?_

_It didn’t matter, either way. It was too late for second thoughts, no matter how they pressed in on every side of his brain until he could feel the physical pressure on his skull. His head ached and his eyes were blown wide with fear, although he didn’t know it, and he wanted to stop. To change his mind._

_If only there was still time for that._

_Watching the whisky drip from the lip of the glass bottle, seeping into the grains of wood and threadbare fabric on the floor, he knew there was no going back. Not this time. Not ever._

_It was either be killed, or…_

_This was for her._

_He tried to shut all other thoughts out._

_For her._

_The sharp, tangy smell of the whisky filled his senses as it met the air, jerking Jack back to reality. He drew in a shuddering breath and tried to concentrate._

_When the bottle was empty, he set it on the side table next to the couch and returned to the dilapidated kitchen. Opening the highest cabinet, where his father kept the fanciest booze (he usually saved it for when he’d made a particularly good sell to a particularly powerful mobster), he pulled down three more bottles, not bothering to read the labels. What did it matter, when they were poured out on the floor? Slowly, methodically, and yet with a sort of frantic energy, he drained each one, splashing a few on the bare walls. Dripping down the grey paint, it looked like bloodstains without the red. Jack turned away. The bottles were deposited on the couch. No one was ever going to sit there again, anyway._

_There were two wooden chairs in the kitchen. Jack had found an old axe in the apartment building basement, and had brought it upstairs without attracting the attention of any neighbors, fortunately. He lugged the chairs out to the middle of the room, then carefully demolished them into long splinters of unfurnished wood. Setting the axe aside, he scattered the pieces across the floor, then doused them in the final dose of whiskey._

_He looked down at the empty bottle in his hand amid the wreckage. The label, a court jester on a unicycle and a string of bells around his neck, grinned back at him._ The Laughing Man, _it read in plain white block letters. Jack tossed it into the growing pile of glass on the couch._

_He made one final trip to the kitchen, rooting through the drawer that was stuffed with cigarettes, loose change, and other assorted belongings. Finding what he was looking for, he returned to the living room. He hadn’t realized how stiff he’d been holding his shoulders until an ache began developing in his upper back. He tried to relax, but the fear wouldn’t stop gnawing away at him._

What if it doesn’t work?

What if he stops you?

_Jack shuddered, the deep-set fear of his only remaining parent, cultivated by years of unconscious conditioning, taking hold of him with more intensity than before. Sometimes he hated himself for it. He wasn’t a child anymore, and he was capable of defending himself if he needed to._

_The only problem was, his mind told him the opposite._

You don’t stand a chance, _it would warn him, serious and certain._ You’re better off letting him have his way and living to see another day.

_The few times Jack had actually tried to fight back against his father had failed. Patrick Napier was a strong man, but Jack could hold his own in a fight. Once or twice, he’d gotten a few blows in. Still, once he saw that mad, ferocious look brimming in the man’s narrow eyes, Jack couldn’t help but freeze, then let the gravity of his mistake wash over him in a numbing wave._

_Those were the worst times, when he made an attempt to fight, and over time, he’d stopped trying. Even now, when he’d hear his father come in at nights, listening to his staggering footsteps and knowing he was dead drunk, knowing he could knock the man out cold with a few blows and end his misery in a heartbeat, Jack couldn’t do it. His muscles would stiffen and his mind would go blank, like static on a radio. He could see it happening, playing out in front of his eyes like a movie on a big screen, but somehow he could never make himself actually do it. If he’d had a therapist, he’d have been told it was his unshakable fear of being alone, of losing the object of his dependency, although the only thing he longed for was independence. He’d have been told it was his mind putting up a barrier to protect him, although it was only hindering his chances of moving on._

_But he didn’t have a therapist, only a pile of empty bottles, a room doused in alcohol, and a box of matches from the kitchen drawer._

_The sun was setting when he heard the familiar, heavy step creak on the stairs that led up to the apartment door. He tensed, a cloud of terror descending upon his mind. He clutched the box of matches tighter, staring at the door with wide eyes. The door swung open with its usual jarring screech, and Patrick Napier strode in, not drunk at all._

_Jack swallowed nervously. He hadn’t exactly counted on that factor._

_The man’s icy eyes swept the room, shock creasing his features as his stare came to rest on the empty bottles littered on the couch. His face contorted into an unreadable expression as he eyed his son in disbelief, still standing in the door. Jack stepped back. He had to get the man into the room, otherwise none of this would work._

_Jeannie was counting on him._

_“What the hell have you done, boy?” His father’s voice thundered, and Jack winced, not allowing himself to turn his gaze away from the man. He watched him carefully, sliding a match out of the battered box, not bothering to reply. His father narrowed his eyes._

_“Answer me, Jack.”_

_“What does it look like I’m doing?” he countered, in a rare surge of confidence. His father stepped forward. Jack moved back._

_“Don’t play around with me.” the man gritted, his eyes clear and alert. Jack berated himself for not having factored in the possibility that his father might not be drunk tonight. He was_ always _drunk…and of course it had to be this one time that he wasn't. This one time where it mattered the most._

You can’t back down now.

_“I can’t kill you.” Jack said flatly, clutching the match in his hand so tightly that it snapped. He dropped it to the floor and pulled another one out. “Not without being caught.”_

_“What are you on about, boy?” his father guffawed.. He was staring at Jack with an immense hatred brewing in his eyes, but his tone was deceptively jovial. “You’re spouting nonsense.”_

_“If I killed you,” Jack continued, willing his voice to stop trembling, “I’d have to dispose of the body. There’s no way I could drag your body out of this building and find a way to hide it without being caught. I did the math. The odds,” he shook his head, stepping back again as his father came closer, “were not great.”_

_“You’ve lost it, Jackie-boy.” his father scoffed. “Stark ravin’ mad. You belong in Arkham, y’know.” he declared, referring to the decrepit lunatic asylum that sat on the east end of the Narrows. “Maybe I’ll call them in the morning and have them pick you up.”_

_Jack ignored him. “I know what I’m doing. I’m…”_

_“That’s exactly what a looney bird would say.” Patrick Napier grinned. He was getting closer every second. Jack could feel his heart in his throat._

_“I’m not going to kill you.”_

_“Well, I thank you very much for that.” the man said drily._

_Jack sidestepped him, swiping the match across the side of the box. The flame hissed as it sprung to life. His father froze, realization sweeping across his face. But, Jack noticed, no fear. Only a faint, conniving smile._

_“Oh, I see.” A soft chuckle. “You’re gonna let me burn instead, is that it? Knock me out, light me up, make a run for it? Well, by all means, go ahead. Drop the match.” He gestured around him. “Let’s see what happens.”_

_Jack wavered with uncertainty. There was too much confidence in his father’s voice to obey his words. He couldn’t be bluffing, could he, when his life was at stake? No, even Patrick Napier loved his life too much to throw it away on a gamble._

_“What do you mean?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself._

_“Drop the match.” The man’s voice was louder now. “Let’s see what burns.”_

_The match had shrunk down to the end, and Jack shook it out before the flame reached his hand, pulling out another. But he didn’t light it this time. “Why are you telling me to do this?”_

_“You’re gonna do it either way, aren’t you?” There was a gleam in his father’s eye, an insane sort of confidence. “You don’t wanna kill me, I know that. I’m your dad, after all. I’ve taken care of you since you were just eight years old and we lost your mother. No way you’d have it in you to_ want _to murder me now.”_

_“You killed her. And I would do the same to you, if I could do it without being discovered.” Saying those words, Jack realized for the first time that they were true. Before now, his actions had been born out of fear, simply a way to escape everything. He didn’t want anyone to die, not really, if he could help it. He couldn’t bring himself to wish that on anyone._

_But now, looking up into the fierce, unmerciful eyes of the man he had feared for twenty-three years, he didn’t feel badly. He didn’t feel sorry._

_He felt nothing._

_“You wouldn’t.”_

_“I would.”_

_“Oh, Jack,” Patrick Napier pushed the empty bottles on the couch aside and sat down. He picked up the whiskey bottle, the one with the court jester emblem on the label. “you’ve always been like this. You need to lighten up a bit more, boy. See the humor in a situation. Like this, for instance. You know what’s funny about this, Jack?”_

_“What?” he asked warily, keeping his distance._

_“It’s that you went through so much trouble to kill me off, but can you really be sure you’ll do it? You’re a lot of things, son, but you’re not a planner. You only thought this through so far, and now that it’s real, you’re gonna realize there’s a lot of stuff you shoulda thought about before. You do wanna kill me, I can see that now. But you ain’t gonna do it. You don't have the spine for that." With a swift, sudden move, he smashed the neck of the bottle on the table. Glass shards danced across the floor, and Jack froze at the sound. Patrick Napier stood up, a grin sliding across his face. “Jackie-boy, you've played a great joke on yourself. But I think its time I deliver the punchline, what do you say?”_

_Jack’s breathing was erratic, his vision blurring as the man stepped closer. His fingers automatically lit the match, shaking as he held it out above the waiting firebomb of a room he’d created. His father’s eyes were wide with a manic energy, waiting._

_Jack dropped the match._

_The flames licked up around their feet, sizzling across the alcohol-soaked wood floor and rug. Heat surged up around both of them and smoke started to form in black wisps. Patrick Napier stepped toward his son._

_“You’re gonna wish we had insurance after this, boy.”_

_The bottle sliced through the air, and Jack could see its imminent descent toward his throat. His hands shot up to block it, and he felt a fierce sting as the glass embedded itself into his palm. Drawing a sharp, choking breath, he stumbled back, further into the apartment. His eyes searched for something to fight back with, all half-formed plans he’d tried to construct falling apart._

You don’t need a plan. Not this time.

_He sidestepped another attack from the broken bottle in his father’s hand, and the man staggered past him, carried by his own momentum. The living room walls were on fire now, the angry red glow illuminating their figures in the tiny apartment._

_Jack turned to run, but was slammed back against the one intact wall, his breath knocked out of him. His father was grinning impossibly wide, that ferocious look in his eyes made monstrous by the hellish glow of the room. “Going somewhere, Jack?” Jack struggled against his grip, trying to avoid the broken bottle hovering dangerously near his face._

_His father laughed. “Come on, Jackie, smile! You’ve gotta admit, it’s pretty funny, what you’ve done to yourself.” Jack gritted his teeth, the bottle rushing dangerously close to his face and smashing against the wall. He felt specks of glass fly against the side of his face and closed his eyes, his father’s laughter mingling with the growing roar of the fire. Soon enough, someone would hear it, and they’d come in and put a stop to it all. Then they’d find out what he’d done and it would be over for him._

_“Look at yourself, Jack!” Patrick Napier’s voice filled his head. “You’re a pathetic wreck…no sense of humor! You can’t even admit your own mistake and laugh it off! Why won’t you, boy?” The smoke was clouding their vision now, and Jack’s lungs burned as he struggled to breathe. His father’s voice was far away and tinny, even though he was right in front of him. “Just laugh, why won’t you? Why…”_

_Jack could feel the man’s grip sliding away, and he made a break for the door. The only thought in his head was getting out of this place, getting as far away as possible. His fingers clutched the doorknob for a moment before he was tackled from behind and knocked to the ground. A grating voice whispered in his ear, the words burning like the fire pressing in all around them._

_“Why so serious?”_

_Jack’s fist shot out, and he heard the sickening crunch of bone shattering. His father fell back, clutching his broken nose with a pained grunt. Blood seeped between his fingers as he glared at his son._

_“You’ll pay for that.”_

_“No.” Jack whispered, his voice hoarse and scratchy from the smoke. He staggered to his feet, looking down at the prone figure sprawled out on the ground. The flames were closing in, but he leaned down, close to his father’s face. “You will.”_

_His father’s voice changed, became cajoling. A burly arm snaked up, latching onto Jack’s wrist. Jack jerked away reflexively. “C’mon, son, you’re not a murderer. You don’t have it in you.”_

_Jack stared down at the man, his eyes burning from the smoke. He could hear sirens in the distance. A crash sounded outside the apartment door, and he realized, through a daze, that the fire must have spread throughout the building. Of course it had…the framework was old, rotting wood. A fire would eat through that like a parasite._

_His father’s words brought him back. “You’re insane, boy! You’re really gonna run out on me now? What sort of coward does that? What did I ever do to you?”_

_Jack smiled bitterly at him, tears streaming down his face from the smoke. The sirens were closer now, the sound rising above the hiss of the fire. He watched as his father's eyes rolled up as the smoke washed over him, pulling him into unconsciousness. The bottle rolled out of his prone hand. Jack felt his heart slow, relax. His limbs went slack and a relieved, almost hysteric giggle rose to his lips. He clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound, then drew in a long breath, despite the heavy smoke. It felt like someone had taken a razor to the inside of his lungs, but he didn't care. He bent down over his father's still form._

What did I do to you?

_“You made me.” he murmured, his voice cracked and broken and dry. There was a sound like a gunshot from the ceiling, and a spidery crack ran across it, more smoke seeping through. “And now you’ll burn.”_

_He turned and walked out, testing the floor carefully before stepping forward. The boards creaked beneath his feet, and he heard screams from the other apartments as he passed by. Avoiding falling chunks of plaster from the ceiling as he crept down the stairs, Jack clutched the railing with both hands. His legs were shaking, but there was a strange energy surging through his body. His lips twitched again, nervously this time._

Why so serious?

_He stepped around a flame that burst up from the carpet on the stairs like a deadly red flower. It was beautiful, but in all the wrong ways. He tried to shut out the screams. The plan hadn’t been to let anyone else die._

_It was too late to do anything about it, though._

_He staggered out the front door, into the crowd that had gathered. Jack could see the red and blue lights of the firetruck in the distance, and pushed his way through the captivated audience. Someone reached for him, and he dimly heard a worried voice asking if he was all right, but he shrugged them off._

_There was a deafening crack from the building, and Jack looked back in time to see the roof fall in, the walls shuddering at the impact. His mouth felt dry, not just from the smoke._

I’m sorry…

_But it had been for her. For them. Now they could do everything they’d ever wanted, and no one could stop them. Jack shivered. Freedom was a new and intoxicating feeling. He glanced up at the burning apartment building above him. He wanted to feel guilt, but there was only that faint numbness he’d felt before. Resignation to their fates. It was like he was watching a movie, the plot unraveling before his eyes. He realized later it was the shock of the moment that had stilled his nerves as he watched the building collapse in on itself with a groaning crunch, the flames shooting high into the grey sky. He felt blood dripping from his hand, and looked down slowly to see it congealing on the pavement below him, running down his fingers like open veins. His hand throbbed, and he clenched his fingers into a fist, watching the blood continue to seep out. Mostly his, but maybe his father’s, too. It was all the same, anyway. The pain began to fade away to nothingness and he turned his gaze back to the smoking rubble that still hissed with bright red flames._

_A year later, he wouldn’t feel that same numbed peace when he watched the gunman blow up the truckload of his fellow soldiers. But now…now, there was nothing._

_It didn’t matter, really, to him. He was just beginning the inevitable._

_“Everything burns.” he whispered to himself, the words lost in the sound of the surrounding crowd. He wasn’t sure if he meant it as a consolation or a threat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> r&r i'd love to hear your feedback! :)


	15. Chapter Fourteen

The four figures sitting on the cell floor in a semicircle looked at each other wordlessly. The hiss of a match flickering out was the only sound to break the silence, followed by a soft puff of smoke. Adams was looking at Jack with a half-uncertain, half-afraid expression on his face.

“How can you be sure it’ll work?”

“I’m not sure it will.” Jack admitted, tracing circles in the dirt absentmindedly. “Honestly, I don’t really believe it’ll get us all out of here. But I don’t know what else we can do.”

“You’re asking us to volunteer to sacrifice ourselves?” Cantrell broke in, his forehead lining as he frowned. “Sorry, Napier, but that doesn’t sound like a solution to me.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Jack said defensively. “If you just let me explain…”

“We heard your plan, okay?” Burns entered the conversation. “But you’ve gotta realize how risky it is. I mean, you want us to walk into the line of fire before we can get out.”

“No, I…”

“What good does it do us if we’re dead before we leave this place?” Cantrell asked, gesturing with his half-burned cigarette. “We have no idea how many guys are out there, and we have exactly zero guns or knives or anything. No way we can hold our own against them.”

“You wouldn’t have to if you could get out without being seen.”

“Oh yeah? And how should we do that? You haven’t explained that to us.”

“Because you haven’t let me!” Jack protested. “Just listen, okay? Then you can say if you’re in or not.”

“Hear him out.” Adams said, without much conviction. He still looked wary, but Jack was grateful for at least someone backing him up.

“Fine.” Cantrell grunted, and Burns shrugged. “But if this plan is gonna end up with us dead, then I’m out.”

“Here’s the thing.” Jack spoke up, ignoring the comment. “We need a decoy to get out of the cell. That’s the first step.” Cantrell looked like he was about to argue, but Jack continued, “I’ll be the decoy so no one thinks I’m sending them to their deaths.” He tried to keep the irritation from his voice. "What happens then, is that we find a way to jam the lock, and when the guard is gone, you guys can get out. You'll need to find the one with me, and it shouldn't be too hard for all of us to take him down. Then we can get him to tell us how to get out of here, and if we're lucky, we won't run into anyone else. We can even take him with us as a body shield."

Adams, who had heard the plan the night before, broke the ensuing silence. “I don’t think it’s safe, but I also don’t think we’ll have any other way to get out of here. I’m in.”

Cantrell hesitated. “How will we know where the guard is?”

“I’ll get him to take me to the room where he took us the first time.” Jack said quickly. “I remember how to get there, and I’ll write it down so you can follow him once you get out.”

“And how do you know he won’t take you somewhere with an entire room of other unfriendly Russians? What then, if we come heading in there and there’s fifty others waiting to kill us?”

Jack shrugged uncertainly. “Last time there were only two of them. But there’s no way to know if there’ll be more. It’s gonna be a risk.”

Cantrell shook his head slowly. “You’re insane, Napier.”

“You’re out, then?” Jack asked shortly, crossing his arms over his chest. Cantrell drew a long breath.

“I can’t be. Otherwise I’m stuck in this cell alone. Unless Burns wants to stay too.”

“I’ll go.” Burns said without enthusiasm. “Just to get out of this hole. Better dying out there than in here.”

“Okay.” Jack said uncertainly. He hadn’t really expected they’d follow him this far. Until now, he’d always been a follower. He’d been able to sit back and wait for orders, then obey them. Giving the orders was a different feeling entirely. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for it yet. He scratched the back of his neck, chafed from the collar of his uniform. “Uh…I guess tomorrow would be the best time to do it. We need to find something to stop the lock from closing when the door shuts.”

Burns reached for the first aid kit and pulled out a roll of gauze. “Use some of this. When the door shuts, it’ll block it from clicking into place. We should be able to open it from there.”

Jack took the gauze and stuck it in his pocket. Adams eyed him. “How’re you gonna convince the guy to take you back to the medical room or wherever it was?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll think of something.” Jack glanced around at their expectant faces. “I guess there’s nothing else to do until then.”  
Cantrell shook himself off, as if he was trying to clear away the sudden heaviness in the air that had descended. "Want to play a round of cards?" he asked. His words echoed hollowly in the quiet. There was a murmur of faint laughter, not because anyone thought it was funny, but because they didn't know what else to do.

 

\+ + + + +

 

It had’t taken long for Jack to decide on the final touch for his plan. When the guards weren’t watching, he pulled off the bandage on his shoulder and examined the stitched-up bullet wound. The stitches were sloppy and loose, for which he was grateful under these circumstances. Setting his face intently, he went to work pulling them out until the injury hung open and bloody again. It didn’t hurt as much as he expected…or maybe it was just eclipsed by the growing fear he had over the next day’s task. 

He was afraid he’d let the others down. He couldn’t afford to do that again, not after all the mistakes he’d made. And he was afraid for himself, scared out of his wits that he would never make it home, never see Jeannie’s face again. 

He didn’t want to die.

Adams sat beside him, glancing critically at the damage his friend had managed to inflict on himself. “Think they’ll buy the act?” He spoke quietly, as the other two slept. Jack stared out through the cell’s bars at the faint figure of the guard, slumped over in his chair. By the steady rise and fall of his chest, he was certainly asleep as well.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter though, because either way I’m going to try.”

“How long will you need before we start to follow you tomorrow?”

“Just wait until we’re out of sight. Then follow the directions I wrote for you. We’ve got to corner him in the room, otherwise someone might pass by and see.”

“Okay.”

They were silent for a long moment, listening to the now-familiar drip of the leaking water from the ceiling. The light in the corner flickered and guttered out, leaving them in shadow. Jack laughed softly, humorlessly, and Adams glanced over.

“What?”

He shook his head slowly, letting his eyes fall shut. “I shouldn't even be here. I never wanted to in the first place. If things were different…if I could accomplish _anything_ without resorting to this..."

The ever-constant cigarette emerged, and Adams lit it up. “Only two matches left. Good thing we’re either getting out or dying tomorrow. What do you mean by resorting to this?”

Jack shrugged, leaning his head back against the cold stone wall. “You know what I mean. This was my only option to go anywhere in my life.”

“You didn’t have to do this. I’m sure your girl would’ve been fine if you’d just gotten an ordinary job. You don’t _need_ to go to college and make a big name for yourself to impress her. Just a nice little family. Maybe the rent would be a little tight here and there, but you’d be happy with her if you love her as much as you say you do.”

Jack’s face flared indignantly and he sat up straight. A stab of pain ran through his shoulder, but he ignored it. “I _do_ love her. That’s why I want the best life for her. Not living out her days in some slum in the city.”

“Was she the one who said she didn’t want that?”

Jack hesitated. “N-no…but I know she doesn’t. No one would.” 

Adams sighed. “Well, I’m no relationship expert. Don’t look at me for advice.”

They were silent again for a while, watching the sleeping guard, before Jack spoke up defensively. “There was a chance for me in Gotham. There could have been. But none of that matters until I’m _recognized._ No one wants to hire a high school dropout. And Gotham University won’t even look at you unless you graduated.”

“So join the army and get in for free.” Adams murmured. Jack nodded, glancing sideways at his friend.

“I’m doing it for her, okay? I don’t want her to ever know what it’s like to live in the Narrows. Where there’s no electricity in the summer and no hot water in the winter and your neighbor’s a crackhead or a murderer, depending on the day. I don’t want that for her.”

“I hear you.” Adams said calmly, his expression thoughtful. “It makes sense, all right. But if she really loves you, it doesn’t matter where you end up.”

“It matters to _me.”_

“I know.” Adams looked like he wanted to say more, but didn’t. Jack tried to explain himself, feeling like he was floundering helplessly into even deeper water.

“I know you think I’m doing this all for myself, but that’s not true. Jeannie’s the only reason why I'm here. If I didn't have her, I'd probably still be stuck in that apartment with my dad, filling in for him when he slept through the drug deals he made. This is the least I can do for her."

"You don't have to convince me, Napier.” Adams said with quiet humor. “I believe you. I just hope you believe yourself.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. Who, then, was he really convincing? He had always been certain Jeannie wanted a better life than what he could offer her, no matter what she said. She was only being kind when she said it didn’t matter. No one in their right mind would really mean that, would they? 

It didn’t matter, even if she did mean it. He wasn’t going to settle for less. Not when he _knew_ he could be more.

The dripping water sounded louder, the noise making his head ache. The guard shifted in his sleep, mumbling something.

Before his mind drifted off, Jack tried to push aside the nagging persistence that the person he was really trying to persuade was himself.

 

\+ + + + + +

 

_The fire department had ruled the situation as an unidentified accident, and the case had been closed almost instantly. They had found the remnants of broken bottles in the apartment strewn across the collapsed floor, but the surviving residents had all confirmed the man’s reputation as an alcoholic. Jack had stayed away entirely, unable to shake the fear that somehow the police would see him and they’d know._

_They’d know he’d killed all those people._

_In the following days, he stuck to the streets, living in the familiar back alleys, to avoid any sort of confrontation. Attention would only draw suspicion. He’d dug through the dumpsters behind the buildings to find pieces of newspapers, buried under the trash, and would read the headlines until they no longer had anything to do with the fire._

_The first day, the words glared up at him, large and black and accusing._ “Twelve Dead in Local Apartment Fire.” _He’d crumpled up the paper almost angrily and ran away, his heart pounding as fast as his feet against the gravely pavement. That night, he’d sat in the alley and stared up at the fog-choked sky, searching for the few stars that were bright enough to shine through. His eyes were heavy and ached, still stinging occasionally from the smoke, but he didn’t dare close them._

_When he did, he saw the flames rising again. Heard the sounds of the building slowly collapsing in on the people inside._

_It was worse than any nightmare he’d ever had._

_The numbness he’d felt at first had melted away, replaced with a cold, horrified guilt. It ate away at him, consuming every thought he had. Whispering maliciously whenever he tried to distract himself._

You killed them, you killed them, you killed them all.

Murderer…

_And Jack knew he couldn’t deny any of it._

_The second night was no better. The wind had picked up, howling across the rooftops above him as huddled miserably in the alley. He stared vacantly at the brick wall opposite him, covered in the wild, colorful lettering of graffiti that reflected the faint moonlight. His eyes glazed over with exhaustion, but he kept them stubbornly open. He hadn’t slept in three days, and his entire body felt strained as he forced himself to stay awake, but he couldn’t do anything else. He couldn’t face the nightmares he knew would come._

_A siren started up in the distance, an all-too-familiar wail that perpetuated the Narrows with hourly frequency. Jack wondered what had happened. It had to be something pretty terrible to get the cops to actually show up. Anything less than a murder didn’t warrant police involvement in this part of Gotham._

Murderer…

_He flinched at the thought, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes._ I didn’t try to kill them...

_As if that mattered. They were still dead. And it was his fault._

_It made that faint sliver of triumph all the more horrifying._

_Because, as much as he hated to admit it, he’d gotten what he wanted. He was free now, free from anything his father could ever do again. He was free to do whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted. The world was his for the taking now, with no one holding him back._

_And wasn’t that what he’d wanted?_

_Wasn’t that why he’d ignored the possibility of killing eleven innocents in cold blood?_

Warm blood, _his mind corrected._ It was fire, after all.

_Jack shook his head in disgust. Was that supposed to be a joke? People had died…if anyone ever found out he had done it, he’d be a wanted criminal. He imagined a stippled black-and-white printout of his face pinned up to all the others on the cork board in the commissioner’s office. Imagined what it would be like to live behind bars, to have everyone know he was a murderer. Imagined Jeannie’s face as she realized what he had done._

_That last thought was too much to bear. He couldn’t let that happen, not after everything he’d done for her._

You killed for her.

_What else could he have done? His father would have hurt her if he found out. Hurt or, or maybe killed her himself. It was indisputable. There wasn’t any other way for them to be safe._

There’s always another way.

_Jack crossed his arms, getting to his feet stiffly. He couldn’t stay still in one place anymore…not with those thoughts running through his head and his eyes feeling like they would fall shut at any second._

_The street was abandoned for the night, and the streetlamp shed only the faintest light here and there, shrouding everything else in darkness. Jack was grateful for that…he’d been paranoid of anyone seeing him in the past two days, although he knew next to nobody and they wouldn’t suspect him of murder in a lifetime. He walked aimlessly down the pitted sidewalk, ignoring the biting wind that whistled and howled around him like a ghost. Keeping his head low and his shoulders hunched protectively inward, Jack studied the ground intently, trying to think of anything but fire and burning buildings and the people he killed._

_After all, there was nothing he could do about it now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think in the comments! :) thanks for reading!


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally get to some actual dark knight-related stuff in this chapter lol

Jack tried to count down the seconds in his head as the guard steered him out of the cell and back to the medic. His throat was dry and he couldn’t focus on anything around him. The only thing he could think was that the others were going to back out of the plan, or they’d cut and run, leaving him behind. He tried to listen for footsteps behind him, but the corridor was silent.

The guard opened the door to the medic’s room and motioned for Jack to go inside. He obeyed silently, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket to keep the man from seeing how badly they were shaking. He backed away into the corner of the room, huddled against the wall as the guard wordlessly shut the door behind him. Jack listened for the click of a lock, panic momentarily welling up inside him at the thought, but it never came. He watched the guard fiddle with the gun in his belt, trying to calculate how quickly he could disarm the man if the others arrived.

He didn’t have long to wait. The door burst open and the other three prisoners crowded inside, silent and focused. The guard wheeled around to come face to face with Adams, who sent a fist flying into his left temple. The man opened his mouth to speak, or maybe shout a warning to anyone nearby, but then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the floor. Jack stepped over his prone body and picked up the gun, glancing up at the new arrivals.

“Okay, Cantrell and Burns, can you carry him?” he whispered. They nodded, hoisting the limp body up between them. “Check and see if he’s got any more weapons.” Adams helped them until they each had one of the curved knives all the guards carried, and Adams and Jack had pistols. “Let’s go back to the cell and start from there.”

Adams led the way down the passage, his gun held at the ready the entire time. Cantrell and Burns followed, and Jack was last, checking periodically to see if anyone was following them. They reached the cell without being spotted, just as the guard was beginning to stir. Jack stepped up, holding a knife to the man’s throat as his eyes opened blearily.

“Don’t say anything.” he warned, and the guard glared at him furiously. “You’re going to tell us how to get out of here. Now.”

The older man gave him a long, venomous stare, then pointed reluctantly to the hall extending into darkness on the left. Jack nodded.

“If you’re lying, we’ll kill you.” He motioned for the others to follow him, and they obeyed silently. Adams stepped up beside him as they started walking.

“How many bullets have you got?” he muttered, and Jack slowed his steps to check. 

“One. How about you?”

“The same. We’d better not come across any more than two guards.”

Jack put the gun in his pocket. “If we do, don’t waste your shot unless they have a gun too. Otherwise just wait until they’re close enough, then stab them.”

Adams looked uncertain, and Jack wondered if he shouldn’t have said that so easily. “You don’t have to kill them, just slow them down until we get out.”  
“Yeah.”

They continued on down the hall in silence, straining their eyes to make out any shapes in the distance. Finally they came to a stop, the passage splitting into three. Jack turned to the guard. “Which way?”

“Right.” he growled. “Then up the stairs.”

“And we can get out from there?”

Before the man could speak, they heard voices behind them, coming closer. Jack’s eyes widened, and he motioned for Cantrell and Burns to let go of the guard as he swung the butt of the pistol at the man’s head. Pushing the unconscious figure to the side, Jack gestured to the passage. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Why’re you leaving him?” Adams asked as they began to run. The voices were getting closer. 

“He could have given us away. And we don’t have time to bring him.”

“But how will we get out?”

They turned the corner and were met with a steep flight of stone stairs. Under the door that sat at the top, they could see cracks of light. Jack started up. “Hopefully this’ll go somewhere.”

The four soldiers raced up the stairs, and the door swung open easily with a creak. Peering around it before going any further, Jack stepped into the light. They were in a large room with another door on the opposite wall. It was grey and flat, and looked like it was made of some sort of metal. They made their way toward it, and Adams twisted the rusty handle. He drew in a sharp breath and looked back, his eyes wide. "It's locked."

Jack stepped up beside him, trying the door. It didn’t move. “Can we kick it down?”

Adams rubbed a hand across his face, glancing back at the other open door. They could hear the voices clearly now, and the approaching thundering of running footsteps. “It’s metal. It won’t work.”

Jack slammed his fist against the door so hard he heard something in his hand crack as a sharp pain exploded through his fingers. He gritted his teeth, kicking the metal slab helplessly. “Is there any other way out of here?”  
Adams was shaking his head, and the other two were staring at him in blank worry, shock clear on their faces. Jack ran a hand through his hair, pulling out the gun and gripping the knife in his other hand. “Okay. We’ve got to keep them away, then.”

“We have no idea how many guys are out there.” Adams murmured, staring at his own weapons like they were poison. “They’ll kill us all.”

“They want us alive…” Jack offered helplessly, and Adams glared.

“No, Napier, they want us _compliant._ If we’re causing them trouble, they’ll kill us. We’re not worth that much.”

Jack flinched at his friend’s raised voice. The gun wavered in his hand, and before he could say anything in response, the door they had entered from burst open. The air became thick with shouting voices and bullets, and he closed his eyes tightly, shielding his face with his arms. He wanted to call out to the others, tell them to run, to do _something,_ anything besides being slaughtered like animals, but his mind was blank and he couldn’t formulate even a single word. Something grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him to the ground, and he stifled a cry of pain as he collapsed to the floor, landing awkwardly on the shoulder he had torn the stitches out of hours before. He forced himself to open his eyes numbly, staring around at the chaos that flooded the room. Remembering the gun he still clutched in his hand, he scrambled upright, trying to clear his vision and find a task to focus on. He could do that, at least.

Before he could set his sights on a particular target, something flashed in front of his line of vision, and he crawled backwards in a blind panic as Burn’s pallid, still face with a bullet hole glaring like a black spot in his forehead, fell in front of him. He felt like the breath was knocked out of him as the body collapsed bonelessly, and his face twisted in horror and disgust. “Oh, no…no no no…” he whispered to himself, trying to shut out the awful sight. 

All his careful planning…he’d been so uncertain at first if they would escape, but as his ideas had grown, he’d become more and more certain that it would work. Even to the point that he halfway let himself hope that maybe they would all get out alive. 

But now the plan was collapsing around him like a city in an earthquake, and his friend’s dead body was lying at his feet, staring up at him with a horribly peaceful expression on his bloody face. 

Whenever he thought he’d made the right decision, people died.

But he’d been so sure this time would be different…

_Some mastermind escape this turned out to be,_ the cruel voice in his head said, and Jack tried to ignore it as he fumbled for the gun that had fallen from his nerveless hand. _Up in smoke, what a familiar sight. I’m beginning to think you’re not too good with plans, Jack._

“You’re telling me.” he mumbled, his fingers wrapping around the handle of his pistol as he crawled out of the way of trampling feet. He tried to calm himself, to sort out his thoughts as his eyes flitted back and forth from figure to figure. The light had been knocked out, and it was impossible to distinguish anyone in the scuffle. Jack got to his feet shakily, turning and knocking into Adams, who was holding his own pistol.

“Should I shoot now?” he yelled over the sound of fighting before a guard dragged him away. Jack tried to see where he’d gone, but before he could move, something smacked against the back of his head and everything grew faint before being swallowed up into black oblivion.

 

\+ + + + + + +

 

He wasn't tied up. This was Jack's first thought as he began the task of opening his eyes. His head was pounding and it was cold, wherever he was. He realized his hands were clenched into fists, and when he tried to relax them, he felt a spark of pain in the knuckles of his right hand. _Must've broken something, hitting that door,_ he mused foggily. Slowly, the room came into focus and he felt the chill of metal in the palm of his other hand. His fingers closed around it. They'd let him keep his gun, too? A faint, uncertain hope shot through him. Maybe Adams and the others had fought off all the guards and they'd found a way to escape. Why else would he be holding a pistol, completely unrestrained?

He heard the murmuring of voices, and strained to hear what they were saying. The hope died away when he recognized it as Russian. So they hadn’t escaped. But why wouldn’t the guards take away their weapons? 

Steeling himself to use his single bullet wisely, Jack pushed himself up on his elbows and glanced around. One of the guards, the older one who had been polishing his knife the week before, looked over his shoulder. “This one’s awake!” he called, crouching down into Jack’s line of vision. Watching the younger man move to lift his gun, the guard chuckled, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Jack paused. “Why not?” His throat was dry, and it was hard to talk. The man smiled, his eyes creasing at the corners.

“You only have one bullet. No sense in wasting it so soon.”

Jack spotted a movement over the man’s shoulder, and saw Adams getting up. He wondered if they were the only ones left. They had to be…he’d seen Burns’ corpse, and Cantrell wasn’t in the room.

The guard watched Jack’s searching eyes. “The other one is dead too. It is just you and your friend.”

_Nice going. You’ve managed to get half of the group killed already. What’s your body count at now, Jack?Fifty? A hundred?_

“What are you going to do?” Jack murmured, his shoulders slumping. He hated to show defeat to this gloating man, but he wasn’t exactly about to be proud for what he’d done, was he? This was his fault…his plan. 

Why was it always him?  
“We,” the man said conversationally, patting the young soldier on the side of the face as Jack flinched away, “are going to have some fun." He stood up, brushing gravel off the knees of his pants. Jack realized they were in a different room this time, but it wasn't the cell. A bare lightbulb swung from the ceiling, and a rough wooden table stood in the corner, accompanied by a few splintering chairs. Adams was sitting up, watching the guards silently as he gripped his pistol nervously. 

“Get up.” The man ordered, and the two soldiers slowly got to their feet. There were three more men in the corner of the room, possibly guards or other mercenaries, and they were watching the scene intently. The guard who owned the carving knife stood between Adams and Jack, glancing back and forth between the two as he spoke. “Which of you wants to be lucky number one?” When neither spoke, he shrugged, unperturbed. “Perhaps you don’t understand this game, hmm?” He sidled up to Jack until they were almost touching, and Jack hadn’t realized how large the man was until then. He felt dwarfed beside him, small and powerless.

_And you’re the one holding a gun._

“I see you haven’t played before. Well, the rules are simple.” The man laced his fingers together, bending them backward until they cracked. “We have decided, since you have been so…” He waves his hands, searching for the word, “…uncooperative, you must learn your lesson. But that doesn’t mean you cannot be a hero.” He smiled again, the light glinting off a tarnished golden tooth, and Jack shuddered. “Normally, we would simply kill you both and dump your bodies out in the snow, but there was nothing to do today, so you get to put on a little show for us!” He looked at the two expectantly, as if waiting for them to thank him. “However,” the unsettling glint Jack had seen last time appeared in his eyes again, “only one of you will be leaving this room alive.”

Jack could feel his lungs constrict, and he drew in a short, shallow breath as he looked uneasily at Adams, who shrugged in confusion. The guard continued, “You each have one bullet in your pistols.” They glanced down at their weapons simultaneously. “And you get to decide who uses theirs.” He picked up a round white timer from the table and turned the dial to two minutes. The timer began ticking, like the countdown to a bomb’s detonation. “As long as one of you is dead by the time this goes off, the other gets to walk away free. But if you don’t kill yourselves or your friend in time," He turned from one to the other, picking up his own pistol from the table beside the timer, “then I kill you both.”

A rumble of laughter came from the other guards as they watched both Jack and Adams’ faces turn pale and horrified. “I can’t kill him,” Adams protested, the gun shifting in his hand. “He’s my friend.”

“I told you, you can be a hero.” the guard shrugged, motioning to his own head with his gun. “Blow your brains out, and he goes free.”

Adams’ stare faltered and turned toward the floor. Jack scuffed his foot against the ground, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it through every vein. This wasn’t the firing squad he’d been expecting. It was infinitely more cruel, and, he couldn’t help but admit, terribly genius. Either way, their captors won.

_This is how you break someone._

_Jack, don’t do this to me._ He froze at the sound of Jeannie’s voice and his head shot up, his eyes searching the room in confusion. The guard raised his eyebrows, and Jack hunched his shoulders, trying to ignore the voice in his head.

_You can’t die. You promised me a life, Jack. Don’t fail me again._

He gasped in a shuddering breath. _What can I do? I let him kill me, or I do it myself. Dead, either way._

_No, not either way. You have a gun of your own._

Jack glanced down at the pistol clutched in his numb hand, as if just remembering it was there. The room suddenly felt much colder.

_I can’t. I can’t, he’s the only one left. I let the others die. I can’t…_

_How else will you get out alive?_ It _was_ Jeannie’s voice, but his at the same time. He saw her eyes, pleading, begging him to come home to her. He saw himself, staring in revolted disbelief that he would really balk at a chance to escape, a chance to go home and finally get what he wanted.

_Walk away free._

Adams was watching him, his eyes traveling back and forth anxiously between Jack and the timer. He held his gun in one hand, then the other, and shuffled his feet almost apologetically. Jack finally lifted his gaze to his friend. 

“You aren’t going to kill me?” he asked faintly, and Adams frowned in disbelief.

“I can’t. Can’t kill anyone in the unit unless they go rogue. I’m sticking by the rules, man.”

“Even if they kill you?”

“I’m not going to shoot you, Napier. It’s not allowed.”

“It _is_ allowed. If your only other choice is to die, then it’s allowed!” Jack’s voice cracked, and he knew he wasn’t trying to talk Adams into killing him. 

_You’re trying to talk yourself into it._

Adams shook his head, staring at the timer. One minute left. The ticking filled the room. “It’s the rules.”

“Stop talking about the rules! They don’t matter anymore, not when no one cares. You can’t try and follow the rules if they don’t mean anything to anyone! It’s the only way you can _live!”_

Fifty seconds remaining. Jack’s hands were shaking as he gripped the pistol so tightly he felt the blood flow cut off from his fingers. _Hurry up._

“I’m not doing it, man.” Adams said quietly, dropping his gun on the floor. It hit the gravel with a deafening clang, and Jack could barely breathe. He felt like he was suffocating, being buried alive. 

“You’ve got to.”

_You’ve got to._

“No.”

Jack was trembling as he raised the pistol, and Adams’ eyes widened. “What are you…”

Half a minute left.

“I told you, don’t play by the rules.” Jack said quietly, surprised at how level his voice was, considering he was trembling like a leaf. “Not when they don’t matter.”

“Come on, don’t do this.” Adams spoke reasonably, raising his hands, but Jack could see the fear in his eyes. “Please, don't give them what they want. You know they're trying to make you do it.”

“What choice do I have? They’re going to kill you anyway.” His voice was shaking now, hovering on the verge of tears. The guards were watching expectantly.

“Napier, don’t do this. Please.” Adams stepped closer, his eyes searching for something in his companion’s expression that Jack didn’t understand. “Please, you can’t do this.”

“I gave you a chance to kill me. You should have taken it.” _For both our sakes._

“No. No, don’t. Don’t say that. Just put the gun down. We can do this. Together.”

_Don’t you dare mess up this time, Jack. Not again. You’ve made too many mistakes, and you’re not going to let this be another one. You’re not ending up with a bullet in your head because you want to be a hero._

Maybe this was the part where he was supposed to say he was sorry, but his throat was too dry to speak, and he could only think about the gun in his hand. The barrel wavered, pointing away from Adams for a brief moment. 

Fifteen seconds.

“I don’t want to.” Jack whispered, mostly to himself, but Adams heard.

“You don’t have to. You’re better than this.”

_Better than this, huh? You sure about that? You’re already a killer, there’s no going back from that now. You can’t exactly wipe the slate clean and expect to start over._

_You can’t go back._

_You don’t deserve to be a hero._

Jack looked at Adams hollowly, the uncertainty in his dark eyes fading. He shook his head. “No,” He aimed the gun at the other soldier’s chest, staring down the short barrel with the cold precision he’d been taught as a long-range sniper. “I’m not.” 

“Don’t—“

Jack pulled the trigger.

He didn’t hear the sharp crack of the pistol’s report, or the heavy thud of the body hitting the floor. The only sound he could process was the voice in his head, whispering like a hiss of scalding steam.

_No rules, no rules, don’t play by the rules or you’ll get killed. He followed the rules, and look what happened to him. He tried to be a hero, and now he’s dead. And where are you? You’re no hero, but you've still got blood running through your veins. Your heart's still beating, and you're still breathing air. So who's the real winner here? Don't have to be a hero for that, do you? It’s all about survival. Someone's got to do the dirty work to make it till the end._

_Not everyone’s cut out to be a hero._

He tried to breathe, but it felt like someone was choking him. He was staring unseeingly at the body in front of him, still clutching the smoking pistol like a lifeline. 

_It’s not your fault. You didn’t have any other choice. Really, they were going to kill you both if you didn’t do anything. Why does it matter if you’re protecting yourself? Either way he ends up dead. It’s not your fault._

_You didn’t murder him. You just did what you had to do._

_That’s what war’s about, isn’t it?_

_You’ve got to choose between one life and another._

A voice floated into his consciousness, the gravely voice of the guard with the knife. “I didn’t think you had it in you.” He clapped a hand, almost congratulatory, on the younger man’s shoulder. Jack didn’t move. “Not as stupid as you look.”

“You said you’d let me go.” Jack replied tonelessly. He watched as his friend’s body was shoved to the side, tossed into a crumpled heap. A trail of blood stained the gravel on the floor. 

_Killer._

“Did I?” the man mused. Jack dragged his gaze away from the corpse. 

“You said as long as one of us was dead, you’d let the other go free.”

“You’re right, of course.” The man was smiling again, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his long curved knife. “But I wouldn’t want you leaving so soon. Not without doing you a favor.”

Jack glanced at him warily. “What do you mean, a favor?”

“I think we owe you some explanation. I did tell you why they call us _Arlekeno,_ but I don’t know if I ever finished my story about the man who laughed at us.”

Jack held the pistol tighter. Even if it was empty, it was the only weapon he had now. And there was something in the man’s expression that unsettled him. “You promised me freedom.”

“And I’m giving it to you. Just…not yet.” In one swift movement, the man pulled the knife from its sheath, the blade shining in the light. “We wouldn’t want you leaving with a sad face, would we?"

Jack looked over at the other guards, who were chuckling. “What are you talking about?” He wasn’t sure if it was fear he felt; there were too many emotions at play to untangle them. 

“The man,” the guard continued casually, ignoring Jack’s question, “was not the most pleasant guest. Rather like you and your friends.” He pointed at him with the knife. “So of course, we had to remind him of who was really in charge.”

“I thought that’s why you had me…” _Had me kill my only remaining friend._ Jack licked his lips anxiously. 

“Yes, yes, but that was just the overture. Now we’re on to…what do you call it…the main event.” The man tossed the knife theatrically into the air. “No prisoner of ours can leave without our signature.”

A movement caught Jack’s eye, and he saw one of the guards at the table shuffling a deck of cards. “Are those…”

“Yours. And you can have them back quite soon, in fact. We have no need for them.”

Jack decided to cut to the chase. “Okay, what are you trying to say? What are you going to do to me?” 

He didn’t notice the hulking giant of a man looming up behind him until his arms were caught in a steely grip. Twisting around, Jack struggled to escape, but the guard held him still. He kicked against the man’s legs, but even that didn’t affect him. “Shh, don’t move.” The guard with the knife said almost soothingly, pressing the cold blade against the side of the young man’s face. Jack ducked his head away, his eyes wide with fear and confusion.

“You said you’d let me go! You said…”

“I am keeping my promise, do not worry. You will be free to leave whenever you wish. We only have to settle a few things first.” The man looked at him appraisingly. “You had better hold still.”

Jack glared fiercely at the man, furious at having been tricked. “If you think I’m…”

“We gave him a smile.” The guard said calmly, and Jack froze, staring at the knife like it was a venomous snake. “To remind him that he was never anything more than what we all saw him as." He picked up one of the playing cards from the table and dangled it in front of Jack's face. "A fool.” 

Jack tried to break free, but the huge guard held him still. The man with the knife stepped closer, the blade inches away from the prisoner’s face. Jack stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, trying to move even an inch in the vise-like grip. 

The last thing he heard was the men laughing, and the last thing he felt was blinding, agonizing pain as it slashed across his face.

 

\+ + + + + + +

 

It was snowing. That was the first thing Jack realized when he opened his eyes to stare up at the black sky above, dotted with pinpricks of silver stars. There were trees around him, with snow dusting the long curled limbs like powdered sugar. And he could feel the cold numbing his arms and his face as he lay curled up on the ground.

His face…Jack flinched as a fiery wave of pain flared up on either side of his mouth, spreading through his cheeks and bringing tears to his eyes. He touched it hesitantly, pulling his hand away sharply and glancing at the fresh blood that covered his fingers. He felt dizzy, the ground rocking dangerously beneath him, and he closed his eyes again. The pain was so terrible that he could do nothing but lie there, his mind blank and clouded. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, but he must have either passed out again or fallen asleep, because when he woke up next, it was evening and he could no longer feel his hands. Some basic instinct whispered that he had to move, and warnings of frostbite echoed in the back of his mind.

Slowly, moving awkwardly with stiff limbs, Jack pushed himself upright. His arms trembled with the strain and he felt something like paper beneath his palm. Glancing down through hazy eyes, he saw the familiar shape of a playing card. Looking around slowly, he realized the entire deck was scattered around him, half-buried in the snow. The men must have tossed it out with him, whenever that had been. He still couldn't think straight, and the only thing that crossed his mind was that he had to gather them all up before they were destroyed.

Jack sat up straight, black spots dancing in his line of vision, and gathered a pile of cards close to him, meticulously counting them out. _Fifty-two,_ his mind reminded him helpfully, _Fifty-two cards in a deck._

His hands were still numb, and he frowned in frustration as the cards slipped between his nerveless fingers. He was so consumed with his task that he’d almost forgotten about his face, and when he felt something trickling down from the side of his mouth to his neck, he brushed it away with the back of his hand. The pain came back in full force, and his hand came away smeared with blood. Jack shuddered, clenching his teeth together, which made it worse. 

_What did they do to me?_

His mind was slipping away again, his thoughts drifting in and out maddeningly. Jack closed his eyes tightly, trying to concentrate. His hands went back to collecting the cards around him until he’d gathered them all into a disordered pile. His hands had begun to sting as circulation crept back into them, but he continued, shuffling them awkwardly into order. 

_Count them out._

He flipped through the cards, mumbling numbers under his breath. He kept his mouth still, the pain flaring up every time he moved his lips to speak. 

_Twenty, twenty-one…_

It was snowing again, and the flakes clung to his eyelashes and melted against his feverish face. The sun was setting, casting a harsh red light over everything. Like the sun in the desert, except this time the light was cold and fierce, not swelteringly hot. Jack never thought he could have missed that sun, but apparently miracles were possible.

_Forty-seven, forty-eight…_

It was getting steadily colder, and Jack realized he was involuntarily shivering. The blood streaking his hand had already dried in the harsh wind that was blowing through the trees. _You've got to get up. Go somewhere. You'll die if you stay here._

_Fifty-three, fifty-four…_

Jack paused, thinking he must have counted incorrectly. His hands shook, and the cards tumbled back to the ground. Tears of anger stood in his eyes, and he sat back against the rough bark of a tree, holding the last card in his hands. He flipped it over, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity. 

_Fifty-four, counting the wild cards._

The wind howled eerily around him, but Jack didn’t hear it. He only stared at the card in his hand wearily. There was another sharp twinge of pain in his face, and again he reached up to touch it, more blood staining his fingers. He dropped his hand back down to clutch the card tighter, his eyes vacant and unseeing as the sun continued to set and the snow began to fall faster and thicker. He couldn’t do anything but stare blankly ahead of him, his mouth twitching sporadically from the bursts of pain that shot through his nerves every few seconds.

On the bloodstained card, the joker stared back at him, a wide grin stretching wickedly across its face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if it was obvious, but the thing in the prison with killing each other or both dying is a reference to the Joker's "two boats" plan in TDK...i like to think he subconsciously gets his ideas from things that happened to him earlier in life. anyway. hope you liked it! i'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!


	17. Chapter Sixteen

_“Sorry it’s such a mess.” Jeannie kicked aside a dented packing box and set down two bowls of spaghetti on the low coffee table before sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "But it’ll be cleaned up as soon as I get the last few things sent over here.”_

_“I like it.” Jack looked around the tiny apartment appreciatively, watching the neon colors from the traffic lights below shine through the blinds and bounce off the wall in long slits of green and red._

_Jeannie propped her elbows up on the table, smiling at him. “Do you really?”_

_“Yeah, it’s nice.” He tried to sound enthusiastic, but he couldn’t keep the distance out of his voice as he ran his hand restlessly over the arm of the couch, feeling the embroidered flowers stitched into the fabric with his fingertips. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be here with her, or that he had anything else to do. He loved spending time with her, watching as her face lit up and became animated as she talked about her day, listening sympathetically as she ranted on about her coworkers at the coffee shop she was working at._

_But sometimes, his mind would wander as he stared absently at her bright eyes, and he’d see the flames rising again, hear the roar of the fire and smell the smoke. He’d feel a fierce rush of panic, remembering how his father had dragged him down to the blazing floor, the wild look in his eyes, the way he’d tried to kill him like he never had before._

“You went through so much trouble to kill me off, but can you really be sure you’ll do it?”

_His father was gone, the ashes of his body scattered in the wind and beneath the wreckage that still stood in the Narrows, since no one bothered to pay for a demolition. He was dead and buried, never coming back._

_But sometimes, Jack wasn’t so sure._

_He knew the man was dead. It was scientifically true, and all he had to do to prove it was dig through the rubble where the apartment building had once stood to find his charred bones. There was no question of that. But sometimes, when he was least expecting it, he would hear his father’s voice in his head, see his face on the face of a stranger walking past him on the street. If someone spoke Jack's name, they sounded like Patrick Napier._

_His father was dead, but he_ wasn’t _gone._

_He would never be gone._

“Jackie-boy, you've played a great joke on yourself."

_“Jack, what’s wrong?” Jeannie’s voice brought him back, and he blinked. She was staring at him through a mouthful of spaghetti, one eyebrow raised in concern. He forced a smile, but it felt stiff and wooden._

_“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” He forced his hand to stop tapping against the couch with pent-up energy, and Jeannie shook her head._

_“Jack.”_

_He stared past her at the window, avoiding her eyes. “I’m okay.”_

_“No, you’re not. You’ve barely said a single thing all night. I know you’re not much of a talker, but I can tell you’re upset about something.”_

_  
“I’m not.” He tried to sound convincing, and not just for her._ Oh sure, you’re not upset. Not like you killed a ton of people and spend your days sitting on curbsides when you’re not dumpster diving for a meal. _“I’m just tired.”_

_“Is it about your dad?” she asked uncertainly. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be nosy or anything. It’s just…you’ve been different since it all happened. If you want to talk about it…”_

_“I don’t miss him.” Jack murmured, still staring at the window. “He…I guess I should feel badly, or I should wish he’d made it out alive, but I don’t. I don’t feel anything.” Sometimes the truth was the best cover. At least he didn’t have to pretend._

_She chewed her lip, twirling the pasta absently around the plastic fork. “You don’t have to. I mean, he controlled your life, Jack. He dragged you down and hurt you. It makes sense, what you’re saying. Is that what you’re so worried about?”_

_He shrugged unconvincingly. “I don’t know. I guess so. I just…I don’t know what to do now. I’ve never been free like this, and I’m…”_

_“Scared?” she supplied quietly, and he nodded slowly._

_“I guess. It’s just that it's all so different than it's ever been before."_ Being a murderer, you mean?  _“I'm sorry, I'll get over it."_

_“You don’t need to be sorry.” She reached across the table to take his hand. When he instinctively flinched at the contact, anger surged up inside him. Even with his father dead, he would never go away. His girlfriend couldn’t even touch his hand without him wondering if she was about to drag him close and punch him in the face. If he knocked against someone on the street, he wondered if they were trying to intentionally trip him up so they could watch him fall. He was always inside Jack’s head, controlling every thought and emotion._

_He was nothing more than a puppet at the end of a string, being held by a malicious puppeteer. Being pulled into places he didn’t want to go._

_The room was quiet, the sound of the traffic below growing louder in the silence. Jack finally spoke up, remembering the reason he’d come here in the first place. “So you told your family?”_

_Jeannie gave a half-smile, intertwining her fingers with his as they held hands. “Yeah. Obviously it didn’t go over great, but they’ll get used to it. Telling Mike was harder.”_

_Uncertainly flashed across Jack’s face. “Why?”_

_  
“Oh, just because I knew he’d take it badly. He’s a great guy, you know, and I should never have led him on for so long. I felt terrible about it, because I think he was serious about us. I just couldn’t tell him until I told my parents, you know? And that part was already rough.”_

_Jack felt a stab of guilt. “I don’t want you to lose everything because of me, Jeannie. If you…”_

_She cut him off before he could say another word. “Jack, you always say that. I told you, if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s my decision, and you didn’t make me do anything. Ever since I first met you, I knew somehow we’d end up together. And if that took some break-ups and my dad saying I’m a bad decision maker, then fine. I’ll take it, if it means I get to have you. So don’t ever, ever blame yourself for what anyone else says, okay?”_

_He nodded slowly, unconvinced. “But…”_

_“No, don’t say anything else about it. I’ve already told them what I want to do, I’ve moved out, and I’m not going back. I took a leap of faith for you, Jack, and you can do the same for me.”_

_A part of him believed her, maybe only because he wanted to. But another part of him whispered,_ You can’t let it be like this forever. You’re leading her into a world where no one ever gets what they want. The darkest part of the city, and once you’re there, you can’t get out. Do you really want that for her? Is that the best you can do?

_Jeannie was looking at him intently, her eyes pleading with him. “Come on, Jack, if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have done this. Won’t you please believe that, at least?”_

I want you, I want to so badly, but you don’t get it. I don’t have anything to give you, and I don’t think I ever will. You say you’re okay with it, but how can anyone really think that? You have to want something more.

_He couldn’t say any of those things to her, because she wouldn’t understand. So he only held her hand tightly and watched as the lights outside flickered from color to color._

“You’ve played a great joke on yourself.”

_His father’s words echoed in the back of his mind like the tolling of a bell, incessant and mocking. He closed his eyes, hoping when he did, he would see something beside the rising flames._

 

_\+ + + + + +_

_1 Week Later_

 

_“Jack, you’re not serious.” Jeannie’s face had grown pale, her freckles standing out against the ashy color of her skin. She held the flyer he’d passed to her like it was a ticking bomb. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”_

_He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes straying to the floor. He hadn’t been sure how she’d react, and it was throwing him for a loop. “I think it might…”_

_“I’ve told you so many times before,” she crumpled up the flyer and threw it to the floor, “I don’t want any more than what we already have! You don’t need to do anything more for me, Jack, okay? I just want to be happy together. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to be Gotham’s number-one guy."_

_Jack picked up the paper from where she’d dropped it on the floor, smoothing it out._ “Enlist today and discover a world of opportunities” _was written in blocky letters across a grainy picture of soldiers, lined up and standing at attention. Beneath it was written in smaller print,_ “Free college, bonuses, and more.” _“There’s a difference between…”_

_“I don’t want to hear it, Jack.” Her voice rose, and someone poked their head around the stacks of books to give her a warning glare._

_“Shut up, this is a library.”_

_“Oh, go…” she started angrily, but Jack cut her off, placing a hand warily on her shoulder and turning her back to him._

_“Look, listen to me. I get it. But it’s not as bad as you’re thinking. It won’t be forever.”_

_“That doesn’t matter!” Her cheeks were burning red with anger, and her brown eyes sparked furiously. “You’re talking about something dangerous, Jack. You could get killed, or captured, or…”_

_“Okay, first of all, that’s not gonna happen.”_

_“How do you know?” Tears stood out in her eyes now, beginning to spill over onto her cheeks. She brushed them away roughly with the back of her hand, sniffing. “You have no idea if it’ll happen or not. And there is no way I’m letting you risk that. This is your life we’re talking about, Jack, don’t you get that? You can’t just throw it away.”_

_He gripped the side of the metal shelf that held up the stacks, the sharp edge digging into his palm. “If I stay here, I’m no better off.”_

_Jeannie huffed out an angry breath. “So none of this matters to you?” She gestured between them. “You, me? Us? It’s nothing special?”_

_“Oh, no…no, I didn’t mean that.” He tried to reason with her, his heart pounding. They almost never argued, and when they did, he couldn’t help but think maybe she’d turn her back on him and walk away forever. “Jeannie, you know I didn’t mean that. You’re the only thing in the whole world that matters to me. That’s why I have to give you a better life.”_

_“We’ve been over this a million times.” Her voice shook with tears and anger. “I’ll always be happy with you. No matter what you have to offer. If we spend the rest of our lives in some tiny little shack stuck between two alleyways, then fine. I don't care. As long as you're with me. That's all that matters to me, and I don't understand why you can't see that!"_

_“You say that because you don’t know what it’s like!” he shot back, his own anger flaring up. “I do, and I don’t want you to have to live like that.”_

_“Well, look at you._ You _made it through. Maybe you’re exaggerating.”_

_His eyes grew dark, and his voice was flat, dead. “You don’t understand, Jeannie. I had to. I didn’t have a choice. If you knew what I had to do to survive in this place…” He trailed off. The silence was stifling. She stared at him, confused._

_“What do you mean?”_

_He shook his head, his hair falling over his eyes._  Shut up, shut up, why'd you have to say that? She's gonna find out now, she's gonna figure it out...“Nothing. _Forget I said it.”_

_“Jack.” Her voice was quieter now, and he heard something new in it._

_Fear._

_“I said forget it.”_

_“What are you hiding from me?” She laid a hand tentatively over his, and he pulled away sharply, glaring at her._

_“Don’t talk to me like that.”_

_She stepped back too, hurt and worry flashing across her face in a kaleidoscope of emotion. “Like what?”_

_He looked away, the words dying in his throat before he could even try to speak them._

Like you’re scared of me.

_Crumpling up the paper and shoving it into the pocket of his jacket, Jack turned on his heel and walked out of the library. He opened the door and the wind hit him in the face like a slap, but he ignored it. He heard Jeannie following him, her shoes tapping on the cracked grey pavement._

_“Jack, you can’t run away from this. You can’t ignore the truth.” She caught up to him, stepping in his path and grabbing the flyer from his pocket, shoving it in his face. “This is a death sentence. You’re not a soldier. You’re mine. I can’t lose you.”_

_He pushed past, avoiding her frightened stare. He knew she wasn't angry anymore, she was scared. For him, for herself, for their future. But she didn't understand things the way he did. She never saw the darker parts of Gotham, the unwanted hordes of addicts and thieves and petty criminals that crowded the streets of the Narrows with hungry eyes and forgotten dreams. She didn't realize how afraid he was that he would be like that too someday…ignored, worthless, a failure. Sure, he wanted to give her everything he could. He wanted her to see him succeed so they could have the best life possible. He wanted her to be happy._

_But most of all, he didn't want to be forgotten._

_Everyone he’d ever known had been forgotten. When his father died, no one wondered what had happened. When his mother was killed, no one noticed the dead body that had decayed in the neglected dumpster behind the apartment building. When he’d dropped out of school, no one asked where he had gone._

_He didn’t want that happening again._

_He couldn’t let it._

_For her, and for himself._

_“Jack, talk to me.” Jeannie’s voice was growing desperate, and her eyes were bloodshot with tears. She grabbed his sleeve to pull him back as he kept walking, and he finally turned around to face her._

_“Would you like to know something?” he asked quietly, his voice nearly lost in the street noise and clamor of passers-by crowding the sidewalk. She looked up at him, the wind turning up the collar of her mahogany-colored coat. “I’ve never made a single decision for myself. Never. Everything I’ve ever done was for someone else, or because they told me to. Or I felt like I had to. I’ve never had the chance to do something because I thought it was right.”_

_She was silent now, listening. Her fingers clutched the paper she held resentfully, as if she wanted to tear it to shreds and let it blow away in the wind. But she didn’t speak._

_“So you can let me do this, and I’ll promise you that I’ll come back home. I can go to college, get a real job, and we can have the life we wanted. A real life, not just surviving paycheck to paycheck, you know? I’ve always wanted to know what that was like, and I promised myself that was what I would give you. We can be happy, really happy, without worrying about anything."_

_“Jack…”_

_“Or,” he continued, cutting her off before she could speak, “or you could tell me that you don’t trust I’ll come home. You can try and scare me out of it because you’re scared too, and we’ll stay here, maybe buy that shack between the alleys you were talking about. Maybe you’ll think you’re happy. Maybe you’ll trick yourself into really believing it.” He watched her carefully, his expression neutral. “It’s in your hands. You decide.”_

_He could see her response trembling on her lips, but she cut herself off before she spoke aloud, dropping her gaze to the ground and passing the flyer back to him with a trembling hand. She wrapped her arms around herself protectively before finally looking back up with agonizing slowness. She looked lost and frightened, her eyes darting back and forth from his face to everything else around them, as if she could only stand to look at him for the briefest of moments._

_“Can you give me a day to think it over?” she asked quietly, her tone subdued. Jack felt a pang of remorse for his outburst, but it was too late to go back. He nodded._

_“Okay. I’ll…see you then?” He looked at her searchingly, trying to gauge if she was angry at him or just upset. She mustered a tiny smile, pulling her coat closer around her shoulders._

_“Yes.”_

_She turned and began walking away. Jack wanted to follow her, but something inside him told him to stay. He watched as she disappeared into the crowds around him, and the air felt much colder once she was gone. He looked down at the paper in his hand, and the line of soldiers looked back up at him._

_“_ Discover a world of opportunities.”

_He already knew she would let him go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp this was the last flashback chapter, everything else after this is going to be present day shenanigans. hope y'all are enjoying this, and i'd love to hear what you think in the comments, they give me life :p


	18. Chapter Seventeen

“ _This is your life we’re talking about, Jack, don’t you get that? You can’t just throw it away.”_

Sometimes, when he heard her voice, he wasn’t completely sure it was just in his head. Sometimes, it sounded too real for that.

_“You can’t just throw it away.”_

The snow had stopped, and now the wind howled, bleak and hollow, around him. The trees rustled and swayed like long black skeletons in the cloudy moonlight. He was still holding the playing card, his fingers stuck to the edges with dried blood.

He’d come so far, but this was it. He was too tired to keep going. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and, if he was lucky enough, maybe he wouldn’t wake up.

He couldn’t feel the burning in his face anymore, but then, he couldn’t feel anything. The cold had crept into his bones, and he was shivering uncontrollably. Sometime in the night, he had gathered up the other cards again and put them in his pocket, or at least that was what he remembered. Everything was becoming more of a blur every time he tried to think. 

_Just give it up. What do you have to live for, anyway?_

_“So none of this matters to you? You, me, us? It’s nothing special?”_

His eyes flew open at the memory that had cut through the haze in his brain, sharp and bright and painful. He saw Jeannie’s betrayed, tear-flooded eyes staring at him in disbelief, and felt a pang of guilt. 

_I’m sorry, but I…_

_“I’m waiting for you, Jack. I’ve been waiting for you this whole time. Don’t you give up on me now.”_

_Do you really want me like this? After everything I’ve done?_

She didn’t say anything back, and Jack remembered she wasn’t really there at all. The quiet of the forest was broken by a distant rumbling sound, like a truck speeding down a highway.

_Follow the road, it’ll take you somewhere._

He closed his eyes again. _No, I can't. Not now. I'm too tired. And it's so cold._

His heartbeat, sluggish and faint, was the only thing he could hear. It was the only thing  _to_ hear...he was alone.

_“You’re a disgrace, Jackie-boy.”_

He felt every muscle in his body tense and his eyes flew back open. The numbness of the cold that had blurred out everything else was suddenly gone, and Jack gave a sharp, surprised gasp as pain flooded through his body in scalding waves. He wondered if that was what frostbite felt like, and if he had it. When he was nine, his father had told him a story about a man he’d worked with whose arm had fallen off from frostbite. Jack hadn't known if it was true, but he'd stayed inside that entire winter.

His father…

His father was here, there was no denying it. He’d heard the man’s voice clear as day, he had to be nearby. He wasn’t dead, buried in the rubble of a burned apartment building. He was alive, and he was here. 

_“You thought you’d get away from me, Jack? You thought you could go to the ends of the earth to escape your guilt, but I’m still here. I’ll always be here. You should have known that from the start.”_

His eyes were huge with terror as he looked anxiously around, blood pounding through his veins and bringing life agonizingly back to his limbs. Clumsily, still clutching onto the card with a sort of desperation, Jack staggered to his feet, leaning against a nearby tree trunk. 

“Where are you?” he whispered, and his face felt like it was splitting open as tendrils of white-hot pain slashed through it. 

_“I’m right here, Jackie-boy.”_

He began to run in blind panic, tripping over the underbrush and dead tree branches that stuck up from the ground like long clawed hands. He felt one snag on the sleeve of his uniform, and he jerked away with a frightened sob. For a moment, he was sure he saw his father, reaching out to grab him, before he disappeared. Jack didn’t care. He turned and kept running, not knowing where he was going. It didn’t matter. He had to get away.

The wind had picked up, and Jack felt it cut into his exposed hands and face. It was colder than ever, but it pulled him out of the blank stupor he’d fallen into before. For the first time in the past thirty-six hours, he felt alive again. Alive and afraid.

It felt like hours before he reached the road. It _was_ a highway, although there were no cars passing by. _Of course not, it's the middle of the night._ Jack pulled himself over the guardrail and stumbled on to the cold pavement, slick with ice. He looked back over his shoulder, breathing heavily. His breathleft puffs of clouded steam in the air.

There was no one coming out of the woods, no sign of his father. Jack leaned against the cold metal of the guardrail and tried to catch his breath. His legs were shaking with the strain, and his lungs felt like they were about to implode. He didn’t move, only kept staring at the black masses of trees in front of him until he was positive no one was chasing him. After a full five minutes of waiting, he finally straightened up, his head spinning with the effort.

_Follow the road._

His eyes were heavy and aching from the cold air, and he struggled to keep them open as he started off along the side of the abandoned highway. His limbs begged him to stop moving, to sit down and go to sleep again, but he ignored it. He had to, if he wanted to stay alive.

He could have walked for twenty minutes or two hours, he didn’t know. But eventually he saw a sign in the distance, an arrow pointing to the left where the highway turned into a smaller road. With trembling hands, Jack turned up the collar of his uniform to shield his face from the cold and followed the sign. He could have been hallucinating, or there could be a light in the distance. He wasn’t sure if he trusted himself anymore.

_What are you going to do, walk into a town like this? You’re an escaped prisoner of war, you think they’ll accept you here? They’re the ones who did this to you in the first place. It’s suicide to go back to them._

But it was getting colder by the minute, and Jack was not going to risk falling asleep again. His father’s words from when he was nine echoed in his ear.

_“His arm just came clean off. No warning or nothing. Just came off, and we watched it lyin’ there on the ground, all purple and still. It was quite a sight, Jackie-boy.”_

Jack cringed at the thought and kept walking. If that was what kept him going, then fine.

It _was_ a town up ahead, and the road tapered off into a street lined with shops and houses. The lights were out in most of them, but at the end of a street there was a place Jack assumed was a bar. He didn’t understand a word of Russian, but by the loud music pouring from the open door and the tall stools that crowded the floor inside, he didn't know what else it could be. And it didn't really matter, not as long as it was somewhere he could go to escape the cold.

Hesitantly, he crept inside, keeping his collar up to cover his face. He couldn’t help but worry that maybe his captors lived in this town and they would see him. Keeping close to the walls, Jack pushed past the raucous crowds that filled the building, and sat down on a rickety wooden chair right before his legs gave out from underneath him. He wrapped his arms around his chest and bent his head, trying to ignore the loud noises around him that made his head ache. The room felt blazing hot after the stark frozen night outside, and it felt like his face was burning as his body temperature began course-correcting. 

Someone knocked into him as they walked past, and Jack curled in on himself even more, staring at the scuffed wooden floor covered in pieces of broken glass. He thought it reminds him of something, but he wasn’t sure. Memories were floating in and out of his consciousness, losing shape and form. Maybe it was something from his childhood, something that had happened a long time ago.

His mother…

He heard a bottle smash.

What had happened to his mother?

He fought back the rising panic as he tried to remember. Memories danced in and out of his mind’s eye, agonizingly hazy. _You’ll think of it, don’t worry. Don’t freak out about it. Whatever it is, it’s not that important. Not right now, anyway. You’ve got other things to worry about._

Someone sat down next to him, and before he could remember he was trying to hide, Jack looked up. The young man beside him was downing a drink, and he met his gaze for a moment. Jack felt his heart stop for a moment.

“Adams?” He ignored the way his face lit up with agony again. He couldn’t stop staring. The young man looked back in surprise, but said nothing. Jack’s breath hitched.

“You…you’re alive?” he whispered, feeling his hands start to shake. For the first time, he realized he was still holding the playing card. Numbly, he shoved it into his pockets with the others.

The man frowned, then spoke in Russian. Jack stared, confused. It was Adams, it was his face, and there was a gaping black hole in his forehead. Blood spilled down from it, staining his temples and under his eyes. 

_No, he’s dead. You killed him. He’s dead, he has to be dead…_

Jack could feel the terror setting in, and he shuddered. “How did you…I thought…” He shook his head. “No, you’re not him. You’re not. You can’t be.” His voice was shaking so badly he couldn’t even make out his own words.

The man said something else, but Jack only stared at the bullet hole, the blood running down his face. Was this a dream? No, it was real, this place was real, and his dead friend was sitting beside him, pretending he didn’t know who he was.

“Adams, it’s me.” Jack clenched his fists, his fingers still stiff from the cold. “It’s me, I’m the one who…I’m the one who shot you, Adams. You remember that, right?” Why was he doing this? Incriminating himself and practically asking the man to get his revenge in one breath. But what else could he do? How else could he know it was really Adams? His voice grew louder, even though he could still barely hear it above the noise around them. “Come on, answer me. Tell me it’s really you.” His voice caught on the last word, breaking. Adams didn’t move. Jack pushed himself to his feet and the other man followed. 

“Why are you doing this? Just leave me alone. I didn’t want to do it, Adams, you know that. I just…they were going to kill us both, okay? Don't you get that? I offered for you to kill me first, but you wouldn’t do it! I gave you a chance and you didn’t take it, okay? So it’s not my _fault_ for what happened.” He couldn’t keep the fear from his voice anymore. Adams placed a hand on his shoulder, and Jack stumbled back, his own hands coming up in defense. 

“No, don’t. Just leave me alone…”

The other man came closer, his eyes narrowing. Jack could see dried blood clinging to his eyelashes, and watched in horror as his face stretched into the familiar rictus grin he’d seen so many times in his dreams before. On Hyde, on the dead soldiers who crowded his consciousness every night after the accident with the truck…and now Adams. Jack shut his eyes tightly, his entire body trembling.

“Please…go away…”

Someone touched his arm, and with a panicked reflex, Jack retaliated with a unseeing blow to their face. He heard raised voices, and suddenly everyone seemed to be shouting at him. He opened his eyes to see Adams stagger back, clutching at his nose and smearing the blood from the bullet-wound that killed him all over his face. He stared around wildly, seeing only angry faces wherever he turned. His pulse pounded in his head and black spots began appearing in his line of vision. 

Disoriented, Jack turned and ran straight into a sturdy, unyielding body. He backed away uncertainly, looking up at the figure with wary, frightened eyes. It was an older man, his face careworn and rugged beneath a faded tan. He reached out a hand to steady the young soldier, and Jack stumbled back, searching for a way to get out of the chaos. He didn’t care if he escaped back into the freezing night outside…just as long as he could escape this claustrophobic mess with angry faces surrounding him on all sides.

“Hey, easy. Calm down, okay? Look at me.” Jack’s anxious stare snapped back to the man as he finally heard, with crushing relief, a language he recognized. The man’s English was tinged with an American accent, and Jack wondered dazedly for a moment if he really was there, or if it was just one of those dreams. 

He still couldn’t bring himself to call them hallucinations. It didn’t sound _right,_ calling them that. It didn’t sound sane.

The man was saying something else, and Jack tried to listen, but there was so much going on around him, and Adams was still staring at him with betrayal shining in his dead eyes, that he couldn’t hear a single word. But he didn’t resist when the man grabbed his arm and pulled him away, out the back door of the building. Partly because he was grateful for any chance to get away, and partly because he was too exhausted to do anything else.

His head began to clear once they were outside, and he leaned tiredly against the splintering wooden siding of the building, shivering in the cold. The man closed the door behind him, slipping on a brown leather jacket and gloves. He finally turned to face Jack, and his eyebrows shot up in shock. 

“What…” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. Jack watched him apprehensively, wondering with faint confusion what had startled him. 

“Never mind." the man said briskly, finally regaining his voice and composure. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"

Jack shook his head, staring past the man at the dark forest behind him. He wondered if his father was still in there, waiting for him to come back. 

_“I’m always here, Jack. You can’t get rid of me for long. I’ll always come back.”_

His already pale face lost its last hint of color, and the man in front of him frowned in concern. “Hey, you, look at me, okay?” Jack slowly turned his gaze back to him, and for a moment he was certain it was his father standing there. He blinked, trying to remember where he was. “I’m not leaving you here alone. You look terrible. You want to stay at my place for now?”

Jack wasn’t really listening anymore, but somewhere in his mind, he’d decided to trust the man. Not because he wanted to, or because he had any particularly good reason, but it was better than freezing to death out in the cold, or being trampled underfoot by the pandemonium inside. 

So he nodded silently, putting his hands in his pockets and wrapping his fingers reassuringly around the crumpled playing cards, holding onto them tightly because they were the only thing he could remember truly being his own as his mind continued to drift apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments? criticisms? like/hate it?


	19. Chapter Eighteen

Jack slowly opened his eyes, thinking for a horrible moment that he was back in the prison cell. He struggled upright, anxiety rushing through him as he tried to remember everything that had happened in the past few days, wondering if that had all been some sort of muddled dream. Their escape, Adams’ death, the man with the knife…

He reached up to touch his face, his fingers brushing against a ridge of twisted skin starting at the edge of his mouth and curving up to his cheeks. He felt a tug on his arm as he moved it, and craned his neck to see an IV needle taped to the back of his wrist. His eyes grew wide in panic and he tried to move his other arm to pull it out, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.

_What’s happening to me?  
_Someone grabbed his free wrist and moved it away, and Jack found himself staring up at the face of the man who had brought him outside the bar…last night? Last week? He couldn’t remember anything that had happened after that. 

“Don’t move.” The man spoke calmly, his voice low. Jack watched him, petrified, as the man turned back to a nearby table, shedding a pair of bloodstained blue latex gloves. “I didn’t expect you to wake up so quickly. I’ve only just finished stitching up your face.” He stepped across the room to examine the IV bag. “I guess you’ll need a stronger sedative.”

“My…” Jack swallowed, his throat feeling like sandpaper. Who was this man? “Are you…”

“A doctor.” the man supplied, running a hand through his grey hair. “I’m American, but I have family who lives here, so I moved from Gotham City six years ago to Russia.”

Jack looked up, startled at hearing the name of his home town for the first time in a very long while. “I’m from…”

The man cut him off. “Don’t talk right now. You’ll mess up your face again.”

Even through the sedative-induced fog that filled his mind, Jack felt a stab of worry. He hadn’t had a chance to figure out exactly what the mercenaries had done to his face, but the pain and blood sent enough warning signs that it was definitely not good. He hadn’t had time to really think about it until now, but, listening to the man's words, he began to feel afraid, truly afraid for the first time about what they had done. Part of the fear was that he didn't _know,_ and part of it was his certainty that, whatever they had done, there was nothing he could do to fix it. Amid his worry, he felt a pang of anger. Were they really so cruel that they would subject him to the ultimate humiliation...no matter where he went, no matter how hard he tried, he would never get away from them. _  
“No prisoner of ours can leave without our signature.”_

It all came back to him then, flooded back in a haphazard mess of memories he’d blocked from his mind in the past few days. Memories of the man with the knife, the blade pressed up against the side of his face, the way he’d heard their laughter ringing in his head long after he’d lost consciousness, how the guard had explained, almost conversationally, what they did to their captive who didn’t listen to them. 

_“We gave him a smile.”_

And suddenly, Jack knew. He didn’t have to see his face to know exactly what they had done. 

He closed his eyes, wishing he had never woken up. He’d worked so hard to escape, he’d abandoned everything he ever believed in to survive, and he still couldn’t win. He was free, but at what costs? 

He was still just a pawn in their evil games. They’d made sure he could never win, not anymore. Not like this.

Not as the _freak_ they’d made him into.

For the first time since this horrible nightmare had begun, since he and his friends had first been taken to the prison, Jack began to wonder if he should try to go home at all.

Would Jeannie even care about him anymore?

He decided it was best to not think about that.

 

\+ + + + + + +

 

When he woke up next, the man who had brought him to…wherever he was…was sitting in a nearby chair, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. He glanced up, giving Jack a faint smile. "Felt like rejoining the world, buddy?" he inquired conversationally, folding the paper up and setting it on a side table. “I was wondering when you’d decide to come back. For a little while there I was worried you wouldn't."  
Jack could feel bandages wrapped around the lower half of his face, and if he wanted to speak, he couldn't. Fortunately, he had no desire to do so. Casting a hollow glance at the man, he closed his eyes again. Before he could fall asleep (or pass out, or do anything to escape from the real world and its cruel twists of fate) the man's voice rose, loud enough that Jack couldn't ignore it.

"Before you go nodding off again, we need to go over a few things." He heard the creaking of the chair as the man stood up, and listened to his footsteps as he came closer to the bed Jack was lying on. “You’re the first American I’ve seen in this area in a long time. Now, I could be wrong, but judging from your uniform and the state you were in the other night, I’d say you’re an escaped prisoner on the run. Would I be right in making that assumption?”

The man’s voice, Jack had noticed, was quiet and refined, with only the faintest inner-city Gothamite accent lingering on certain words (it was surreal, hearing such a familiar sound after so much uncertainty in his world for so long), but he carried himself with such authority that ignoring him was out of the question. Still, Jack also wasn’t about to risk being sent straight back to the underground labyrinth where he’d watched his friends die. This man might have helped him, but he was a stranger, and Jack could recall very few instances in his life when giving personal information to strangers had ended well for him.

So he did close his eyes again, shutting them tightly and wishing he could summon unconsciousness voluntarily. The man’s voice continued, “I understand if you don’t trust me. I won’t pretend to know what you’ve been through, but I admire your courage in getting as far as you did.”

Jack wanted to laugh if he could move his mouth. Courage? That was a a good one. Unless shooting a friend to avoid a firing squad was courage, this man was seriously misinformed. 

He suddenly realized he wasn’t in the uniform anymore, but in what looked like the closest thing to pajamas he'd worn since he was still living in Gotham. He felt for a pocket, panic rising up in his throat.

_They’re lost, he must’ve thrown them away or burned them or…_

The man noticed his anxious movement and turned back to the table, holding out a familiar deck of cards tied together with a rubber band. “Looking for this?” he asked quietly, and Jack’s eyes widened as he nodded as best he could. Relief washed over him, although he couldn’t explain why. It was just a pack of cards, after all. Nothing special, and certainly nothing he couldn’t buy at any local dollar store in practically any country. But they were _his,_ the only thing he had left that truly belonged to him and only him, and losing them would be like losing a part of himself.

The man set them back down on the table, and Jack watched his every movement, his hands aching to hold the cards and shuffle through the deck, making sure every single one was accounted for. Instead, he had to be content looking at them from afar until the man stepped into his line of vision. He held something shining in his hand, and it took Jack a moment to realize it was a pair of dog tags, dangling from the cheap silver chains. He reached up to touch his neck and realized they were his. The man passed them back to him and Jack’s fingers closed possessively around the cold metal. His right hand was splinted and wrapped up tightly, and he remembered hitting something…a metal door?…and feeling something break. He wondered why it wasn’t hurting, then realized the IV probably had anesthesia in it. He hated the idea of his mind being controlled by drugs, but it was better than pain, at least.

“Private Jack Napier, am I right?” He crossed the room and sat back down in the armchair. “But that’s all I know about you. You probably don’t trust me right now, and I get that. I’m not trying to make you open up about your life story or anything. But here’s the thing.” He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “If you went back to your base right now, they would give you an honorable discharge. You wouldn’t be expected to maintain your station in this condition. Especially not after being a prisoner for however long _that_ was. They’ll send you home to your family and you won’t have to worry about fighting in a war again. I can help you with that.”

The man sounded sincere, as if he actually, genuinely cared, and Jack opened his eyes warily. It didn’t make sense…why on earth would this man have any interest in helping a total stranger who couldn’t offer him anything for it? Jack frowned in spite of the half-numbed pain that tightened in the lower half of his face before turning away, rolling over onto his side and shutting his eyes again.

As if he was reading Jack’s thoughts, the man continued, “You don’t have to take me up on my offer, but here it is. I’ll let you stay here as long as your need until you can travel, then I’ll make arrangements for you to get back home, wherever that might be. You can contact your unit, and when they give you the green light for an honorable discharge, you can go back. I’m willing to help you with that, and I don’t want anything from you for it. I just want to see you get home safely, because I’m worried about you.” He _did_ sound worried, but Jack couldn’t find it in himself to try and reassure him. Not that he could speak in the first place. “I’ve seen this sort of thing happen to people before. Not _just_ like this, but you understand.” Jack didn’t, and he wasn’t really listening closely anymore. The man’s voice was floating in and out of his head, like orders coming through a radio with a bad connection. “They don’t come out the same way they went in.”

_You’ve got that right,_ Jack thought sarcastically.

“Sometimes they end up all right, but other times they don’t. They let the darkness control them, and it takes over. Before anyone realizes it, it’s too late for them to go back. You know what I mean?”  
Jack wanted to say no, he had no idea what this man was rambling about, but he went for the only option available: silence. The man sighed. “I don’t want that happening again, and not with you. I don’t want you giving up. That’s why I want to help you.”

_I want to help you._ The words burned like acid poured into an open wound, and Jack felt the corners of his eyes sting with the threat of frustrated tears. _A little late for that, isn’t it? I’ve got nothing more to lose. There’s nothing anyone can do to help that._ He stared hard at the wall, watching shadows flicker across it like dark, dancing flames. _They’ve taken everything from me. You can’t help me. Nobody can. Not when there’s nothing left to live for._

He closed his eyes again, not realizing his mind had, for a moment, shut out every thought of the girl waiting back home for him, the reason he was here in the first place.

_Nothing left to live for._

The words reverberated through his head, pounding like the relentless beat of a drum. Repeating themselves like a mantra, almost hypnotic. Almost soothing. As if he was telling himself that it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

_You’ve got nothing left, nothing that belongs to you._

_Nothing in your name._

_Nothing to tie you down._

Flames sprung up behind his eyelids, and he heard the hiss as they sputtered up to the sky, black smoke billowing in and out of the fire like wisps of ghosts. He remembered the day his father died, the way the heat seared his face as he watched the building implode on itself, the way he’d watched the blood on his hand drip down to the street below, watched it and wondered if it was his own or his father’s. 

He remembered how free he’d felt.

_And you had nothing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you like batman memes hmu on tumblr at inc0rrect-dc :p


	20. Chapter Nineteen

_Two Weeks Later_

 

Jack’s memories of the time he’d spent in the stranger’s house were blurred and uncertain. He spent the majority of the time asleep, and for the first time in months, he didn’t have a single nightmare. When he was awake, the man would speak to him, but Jack never remembered what he’d said after the fact. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night, not remembering where he was until he felt the bandages that wrapped around his face. Those nights, he would reach up and brush his fingers across the soft cotton, as if reassuring himself that it was real, that he wasn’t living in a hallucinated world where he had escaped.

One of those nights, he hadn’t been able to fall back asleep. The man usually gave him a sedative at nighttime (which could have explained his sudden lack of bad dreams) but after Jack woke up he stayed awake, staring at the ceiling with wide, restless eyes. His face was aching, and all he wanted to do was claw away the bandages to rid himself of the terrible stifling feeling that was keeping him up. His hands twitched, and finally he sat up slowly, ignoring the way his head spun and his shoulder, which the man had graciously re-stitched up, hurt from the strain. 

There was a single window in the room, and the moonlight that shone through was just enough to illuminate the floorboards and surrounding walls. Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed and clumsily pulled the IV needle out of the back of his hand, wincing at the sharp sting. Cautiously, he stood up, his legs trembling beneath him from two weeks of barely being used. He drew in a deep breath, starting across the room to the door. He opened it silently, then crept down the long darkened hallway. The man had shown him the house a week ago, and Jack had followed him in an exhausted stupor, wondering when he’d finish so he could go back to bed. He’d forgotten most of it, but he’d seen the glimpse of a mirror through the door of one room they’d passed, and he remembered where that was. 

Somewhere in his jumbled thoughts, he’d gathered up enough curiosity to get up in the middle of the night and discover what had happened to him.

Well, he knew what had happened. _Assess the damage_ was a more accurate way of looking at it.

He pushed the door, which stood ajar, open, and stepped into the guest bathroom. A window in the hallway allowed for enough light to shine through. There was the mirror, on the wall above the sink, and Jack stared at his pale, heavy-eyed reflection. Everything beneath his nose and cheekbones was swathed in white bandages, making him look like a ghost. He touched the glass hesitantly, wondering if that really was him he was seeing, and not some deathly apparition. 

The mirror was cold and solid beneath his fingers.

He breathed shakily, reaching up to untie the bandages. His movements were slow and uncoordinated, and he mentally swore when his hands began to tremble. He stepped back to lean against the wall until his nerves settled and his fingers weren’t quite so numb. There was a drop of blood on the back of his right hand from where he’d torn the needle out, and he tried to brush it away, but only succeeded in smearing the blood even more. His shoulders tensed with frustration and helplessness, and he crossed his arms, curling in on himself defensively.

_Calm down. Just calm down. You’re freaking out and that’s a stupid thing to do. You’re supposed to know how to handle this stuff. You’re a soldier._

_Yeah, some soldier. Not anymore. I haven’t done anything that qualifies me for that title._

_Fine, but that’s no excuse to be a coward. You’ve gotten this far, don’t give up now._

Jack looked back up, resuming his task. He finally succeeded in untying the bandages, and began to unwrap them as quickly as he could. Halfway through, he paused, catching his own gaze in the reflection. He saw something in his dark, wary eyes, something all too familiar.

Fear.

_You’re gonna find out sooner or later. It’s only a matter of time._

He resumed unraveling the cloth, and his hands were shaking again, worse than before. He glared at himself in the mirror.

_You’re pathetic. Weak. You’ve made it through the worst things imaginable, and this is what scares you? You’re afraid of what you’ll see? They killed your friends, forced you to shoot the only one left, captured you and were going to leave you for dead? And you’re scared of what they did to your face?_

It was ridiculous, it was childish, but it was _true._ Jack couldn’t deny it. He couldn’t explain it either, why he was so hesitant to finally see the damage the mercenaries had done, why _that_ was what frightened him the most. Maybe because he was afraid that once he saw, that would be it, the breaking point. The straw that broke the camel’s back. So much had happened…he didn’t deserve this final, cruel trick.

He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt the tears on his cheeks, hot and feverish. He blinked quickly, brushing them away with his shaking hands. _You’ve never changed. You never will. You’ve always been a coward, afraid to face the truth. With your father, with Jeannie, even with yourself. You can never admit the truth, because you don't want to believe it. But what happens when it’s staring at you and you can’t look away? What happens when it’s there, in the mirror, and you know it’s real? What then?_

_You can’t keep running from the truth. About you, about what you’ve done, about everything. You’ve got to face it._

_Face it…_

His face…

Jack pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, stifling any further tears. _Just get it over with._ And suddenly, with a sort of horrified energy, he was tearing at the bandages, ripping them away like they were stifling him, dragging the breath from his lungs. He let them fall to the floor before turning back to the mirror. 

He was silent, taking in the sight. His hands had lost all feeling again, and he felt cold, colder than he’d been out in the frozen wilderness two weeks before, but he wasn’t shivering. He stood stock-still, his eyes locked on the face in the mirror. Looking at the twisted, angry lacerations gouged into either side of his face, slashing through his cheeks and down to his mouth. Crisscrosses of black thread were sewn through them, knitting the flesh back together into inflamed ridges. White streaks of scar tissue had begun to build along the edges, lacing themselves across the broken skin like spiderwebs. The stitches were loose, and blood welled up along his cheeks, the skin chafed from his frantic dislodging of the bandages. Jack could taste the metallic flavor in his mouth, and his stomach churned. His thoughts blurred and contorted, losing all shape and coherency.

He was suddenly back in the burning apartment building, his father leering over him, his face so close although Jack could barely see him through the smoke. He felt like he was suffocating, like the life had drained from all his limbs. His father’s voice came crashing back to him, crackling like burning wood. Memories danced maddeningly through his brain, twisting and turning until he could barely tell them apart. His father, staring down at him, the building going up in flames, his mother…

_Why…_

_Why so…_

_What had happened to his mother?_

He remembered it now. He remembered everything. The day she’d died. The look in his mother’s eyes as his father ran at her with…with what? A bottle? He’d been holding a bottle? No, that didn’t make sense. Bottles couldn’t…bottles couldn’t _do_ that.

His hand burned, and his eyes fell to the thin pale line that crossed his palm, and he remembered the way the blood had dripped into a puddle on the pavement. He heard shattering glass breaking through his clouded thoughts.

_Was that from a bottle?_

_From the fire…_

_What fire?_

He’d killed her. His father had killed her. With…yes, with a knife. It was a knife. It had to be, it was what made _sense._ It was what he remembered.

Jack heard his father laughing.

_Why so…_

Jack had seen it all. He’d been watching from the doorway. He’d watched as she’d fallen to the ground. How his father had…

_Came at me with the knife._

_No, that’s not right._

He was still laughing. _My father, I mean. He was the one laughing._

The blade was in his mouth, pressed against his skin. Cold, sharp. Dangerous. 

No, that was in the prison cell…he was in a prison…

_He’s the one. He did it. He killed your mother. Maybe he killed her with a knife or a bottle or just anything but he killed her. You were watching. You were there. He saw you standing in the door, and he told you...he told you..._

_He told you he’d let you go free?_

No, that wasn’t his father. That was someone else, he knew the voice, but he didn’t recognize it. Who had said that? 

_Why…_

It had to be his father. He was the one who killed her. He was the one who’d held the knife to his face.

_Laughing while he does it._

Jack heard his voice again, reverberating through the room. It was all around him, closing in, shutting down his senses. He couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror anymore, it was only his father, staring down at him with those wild, crazed eyes. He was still laughing. Jack closed his eyes tight, as if that would shut out the broken memory that wouldn’t go away. The laughter filled his head, clogging his thoughts. He couldn’t move.

_Why so serious?_

He dragged his eyes back open, and his father’s voice faded away. He was alone in the room, staring into the mirror. He took a hesitant step closer, his knees almost buckling as he moved. Steadying himself by grabbing onto the edge of the counter that surrounded the sink, Jack leaned on his wrists and surveyed himself in the mirror. His breath came in harsh gasps, as if he had just been running, and sweat stood out on his forehead. His face was burning again, and the ache had grown intolerable, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t turn away.

_Look at yourself. Look what’s happened._

His knuckles turned white as his grip on the counter tightened. The memory floated at the corner of his consciousness, maddeningly clouded and uncertain. He remembered a prison, a gun, he remembered shooting and watching the body fall to the ground.

Smoke from the barrel…

_Choose between one life and another._

What had _happened?_

He tried to think, tried to remember names, faces, times. Nothing came. It was all a blur, fading in and out like strands of smoke. He clenched his teeth, sending tendrils of pain shooting through his face, and tried harder. It was there, somewhere in his head, but he couldn't find it. He knew who he was, he recognized the haggard face staring back at him in the mirror, he thought he remembered his name and his past, but he couldn't be quite sure. He just knew who _he_ was, nothing more.

With sudden inspiration, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the dog tags. The metal felt heavy in his palm, and he stared down at the name engraved on the smooth surface. _Jack Napier._ So he knew who he was. At least, who he thought he was. He traced the letters with his finger.

For now, that was good enough.

He dragged his gaze back up to the mirror. The reflection smiled back. No, not smiled. The gashes on his face smiled, combating the darkness that was building in his brown eyes. Jack touched one of the stitches gingerly with a sort of morbid fascination, his mind going numb again. 

_You’ll never stop smiling. Even if you want to, you’ll never stop smiling. You can’t escape it, because it’ll follow you everywhere. Carved into your face. It’s a part of you now. As much as your name or these,_ his hands tightened on the dog tags, _or Jeannie._

Jeannie. The name came back to him all at once, and he remembered her face, her beautiful face without any scars, without any sort of imperfection at all. He remembered her eyes, how they shone in the sunlight and when she looked up at him.

Would she ever look at him like that again?

How _could_ she ever look at him like that again? How could she even try? When he looked like…

Like _this._

A sob escaped his throat before he could stop himself, and he buried his head in his arms, crossed on the counter. He was trembling now, his body ready to collapse under the strain and shock, but he didn’t notice it. He didn’t notice anything, just the black strands of unconsciousness that were beginning to claw at the edges of his mind, pulling him in. He welcomed it, hoping that maybe this time it wouldn’t let him go, that it would hold him tightly forever and he would never have to wake up, never have to look at that mangled face in the mirror that grinned at him. Never have to look at that horribly ruined mouth that shone with blood.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around, backing away in breathless panic. The man stood in the doorway, one hand outstretched cautiously. Jack stared at him wordlessly, his chest heaving as he gasped in air. He pressed his hands to the sides of his face, feeling the mutilated ridges of skin shift against his fingers. He didn’t even feel the pain for a moment, but it eventually came, ripping through his nerves in scalding waves. Jack finally spoke, his voice no louder than a broken whisper.

“What happened to me?”

The man watched him with a combination of wariness and sympathy in his eyes. He shook his head slowly, almost apologetically. 

“I’m sorry,” His voice was low, quiet. It was like he was speaking to a wild animal, trying to convince it not to go into defense mode and attack him. “I wish I could tell you.” He bent to pick up the discarded bandages from the floor, wrapping them absentmindedly around his hand. “But the truth is, I really don’t know.”


	21. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the guy's name in this is from one of the Arkham games...there's no real reason behind that for this fic other than i'm terrible at creating names :P

In the following days, Jack learned the man’s name was Stephen Kellerman, and that he was a former doctor at Gotham’s mental asylum, Arkham. He also learned that if he wanted to make arrangements to get back home, he would have to talk, which was difficult since he hadn’t said a word for three whole days after getting up in the middle of the night, and wasn’t planning on saying anything any time soon…it was easier to ignore everyone and everything and wish he was dead.

But Kellerman wasn’t going to allow him to slip deeper into depression. Two days later, Jack heard a knock on the bedroom door. He rolled over onto his side, burying his face under the pillow and wishing he could disappear. He felt miserable, and would much rather wallow in his misery than try and force himself to come to grips with reality. His head hurt, his eyes felt heavy and gritty, and although his mind was clouded with exhaustion, his body was filled with a sort of aching, restless energy that made him want to scramble out of bed and put a fist through the window. At least then he could _feel_ something.

There was a pause after the knock, then the sound of the door opening. Jack didn’t bother to open his eyes, instead listening to the man’s approaching footsteps and the familiar creak of the chair as he sat down. 

“Jack.” He opened his eyes at the sound of his name, but still didn’t move. “I’m not one to pry into people’s lives, but I am not going to sit here and watch you lose your desire to live. I’m not going to pretend you can just forget all the terrible things that have happened to you, but the truth is, nothing’s going to get better if you just lie there all day and do nothing. I’ll help you, but you have to cooperate with me as well.” He paused, and they listened to the silence between them. “Are you listening to me, Jack?”

Jack shifted under the covers, curling up into a ball and wrapping his arms around his knees. He felt the strain of the stitches in his shoulder and realized how tense he was, without even noticing until then. He hated this, hated how he couldn’t even remember why he was so on edge, how his natural instinct was to be constantly on guard whenever anyone else was around, how none of his memories seemed to fall in place anymore and he didn’t know what to believe about himself of why he was here or why, whenever he tried to remember anything about his past, he only saw blurred, fragmented pictures that drifted away before he could grasp onto them. Some nights, when he would lie awake and star at the black sky outside with empty eyes, he would begin to wonder if he really was himself anymore. If he couldn't hold on to his own memories, was he really _anyone?_

One things stood out, unaffected by the oblivion that was slowly covering his past: Jeannie. He remembered her as if he had seen her yesterday, remembered every line and angle of her face, remembered the exact shade of her eyes and the way they sparkled in the light. He remembered how he’d promised to come back to her, and how she had promised to wait. He remembered _them,_ how they would always be together, and he knew she was the reason he hadn’t given up just yet. He still couldn’t pin down why he was here, and his memories of the last few months were only snippets of consciousness, with a blur of faces, voices, and words jumbling together in an incoherent mess. But he remembered her, and sometimes he could convince himself that was all he needed.

“I need you to listen to me.” Kellerman’s cut through his thoughts, and Jack slowly disentangled himself from the sheets, propping himself up on his elbows and giving the man a weary glare. “Just answer a few questions for me, okay? You can do that, at least.”

Jack shrugged, lying back down and staring at the ceiling. Kellerman watched him silently for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Do you remember where you were before I found you?”

Jack did, and although he had remembered being terrified and surrounded by angry people closing in on all sides, he couldn’t remember _why._ “In…in a bar?” he tried hesitantly, hating how uncertain he sounded. He wasn’t some amnesia patient or one of Kellerman’s asylum inmates. He just…wasn’t sure what had happened.

“Right. You were punching a young man in the face.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “I…”

“I didn’t ask you why, because I didn’t want to scare you away, but now that it’s been a little while, I’m going to ask you now. Why were you hitting him? And why were you in the bar in the first place?”

Jack's head was spinning with all the information. He vaguely remembered hitting someone, then being dragged out of the chaos. After that, everything was just a blur. And before that, for that matter. “I...I don't know. I thought..." His voice cracked and he stopped. He didn't think _anything._ He didn't remember. 

“Why were you there?” The man’s voice wasn’t harsh, but it was insistent, and Jack knew he wasn’t going to escape this interrogation. He drew a shuddering breath, trying to ignore the stitches that tightened at the corners of his mouth whenever he moved a muscle in his face. Thinking about it only made it worse. He tried to focus on how he had ended up in the bar. Mental pictures flickered through his mind, and he tried piecing back the few memories that still lingered.

“I think…I think I was running away.” he tried, knowing that probably wasn’t the right answer, but it was the only one he could think of. _Running away from what?_ “I was…in the woods…” It was coming back to him now, piece by piece, but not entirely. Only tiny slivers of memory that pushed their way into his thoughts, like shards of broken glass. 

He tensed as the sound of shattering glass echoed in his mind, and he remembered again.

“My father.” he said decidedly, and Kellerman looked up sharply in surprise.

“What?”

Jack gave him a nervous glance, twisting the corner of the sheets around his hand. “My…my father. He was…I was trying to get away from him.” Even as he spoke, he knew that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. He saw the blazing building and remembered the broken bottles and how the framework had collapsed into ashes and rubble…his father was dead. He had been dead a long time.

Then who was he running from?  
His face fell, and he shook his head slowly. “No, that’s not right. He’s gone. I…I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.”

Kellerman drew a long breath, the lines in his face deepening in concern. “Jack, you’re a soldier. You remember that, right?”

Jack glanced at him dazedly. He did know that, he’d seen his own identification tags and ragged, bloodstained uniform. But he didn’t know how, or why, or for how long. It was all there, somewhere in his head, but he couldn't find any of it. "I think so..."

“I don’t know what happened to you, either, but I don’t think it would have been a family member you were running from. When I found you, you looked like you had been taken prisoner and escaped. Whoever you were with before is who carved up your face.”

Jack frowned. That couldn’t be true…he remembered his father coming at him with the knife, the gleam in his eyes and the laughter that had reverberated around them deafeningly. He remembered _that_ more clearly than anything else. And his father was dead. “No…no, that’s not right.” he tried to argue, although he felt his confidence in his own mind slipping from his grasp as soon as he spoke. Could he really even trust himself anymore? “He…my…that happened a long time ago. Back home. When I was…” How old had he been? Nine? Ten? Had Jeannie seen him like this? Frustration burned through him and he clenched his fists helplessly. “I can’t _remember.”_

“Okay, let’s back this up a little.” The man spoke softly, and Jack wanted to feel comforted, but he couldn’t. Not when he could barely grasp his own past, and not when he could feel everything he had ever known disappearing from his memories before he could hold onto them. “Who are you? Let’s start with that. I know your name, and I know you’re from the same city as me, but who are you? Who is your family, are you married, what did you do for a living? Things like that.”

Jack closed his eyes in concentration. His family…he knew that for certain. He could see his father as clearly as if he was standing in the room right then. His mother wasn’t as defined, but he remembered her, remembered how she had died in a pool of blood, how he’d watched the whole thing. “I don't have any family.” And that was true. Not anymore, he didn’t. 

“You mentioned your father.”

“He’s dead.” Jack felt a faint sense of dread saying the words out loud, as if they would suddenly reverse the reality of his father’s death. “My mother, too. I have…” A girlfriend? Would she even want him if she saw him like this? What would she think? “I don’t have anyone else. And I don’t have a job. Or I didn’t. That’s why I joined the army.” A quick flash of clarity helped him fill in the gaps, and he remembered how he'd promised Jeannie a better life, how he'd promised himself that he would become someone important, someone who could give her everything she ever wanted. How this had been the only possibility for a new start, if only so he could scrape together enough for a degree and then maybe a decent job. He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Why on earth had he thought that would be a good idea? 

“Okay, at least now we’ve got an idea of where you come from.” Kellerman was absorbing all the information with the calmness of a trained professional, and Jack couldn’t help feel a stab of resentment toward the man. He wasn’t one of his patients, one of the lunatics in the old asylum back in Gotham. That was a place for crazy people, and he wasn’t crazy. He was just not sure of a few things. And wasn’t that the usual response to shock? It wasn’t as if he was acting insane. He just needed more time to process everything, adjust to what had happened. And after that, everything would go back to normal.

_That_ was a laugh. As if anything had ever been normal to begin with.

“So you don’t have any living relatives? What about friends? Anyone who you can go home to?”  
Jack’s throat tightened. Home. He’d never told Jeannie that he’d been living on the streets, but she must have suspected it, the way he never asked her over, how he never held down a job for more than a week before bailing out, how he’d never say where he lived, only that it was “a place in the Narrows.” It wasn’t a lie…only it was a alleyway in the Narrows, or a warehouse by the docks if it was raining. He didn’t have a home, and couldn’t remember when he had. 

“My…” _Just say it._ “my fiancee…she lives in Gotham too. She might…might let me stay with her if I tell her I’m coming back.” 

Kellerman looked up. “Does she know you’re alive? If you were captured, she would have been sent a notice about it. Have you contacted anyone after escaping wherever you were taken?”

Jack’s eyes burned with frustrated tears, but he tried to keep them in check. “I already told you, I don’t _know_ where I was taken. I don’t know what happened to me.” Despite himself, his voice trembled, and his words trailed off at the end helplessly. “I keep telling you that.”

"Okay, calm down, I was just..."

"Look, all I know is that I'm not in Gotham anymore, I don’t know what’s been happening for who knows how long, maybe a month, maybe a year, I don’t _know_ anymore, and I’m starting to forget the things I _do_ know. They just…” he gestured uselessly, “keep _slipping,_ and I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’ll forget everything else, if I’ll forget who _I_ am next, if I’m not who I think I am or if this is all a dream and I’m still stuck in wherever I was that I can’t _remember…”_ His breathing was erratic and shallow, and he felt himself tensing up again. Only this time he couldn’t relax, he could see shadows of his own nightmares lingering at the edge of his mind, and he knew he was hovering somewhere between states of consciousness and would probably pass out if he didn’t calm down.

But how was he supposed to calm down when everything he ever knew was slipping through his fingers and disappearing into nothing?

Kellerman was talking again, his tone low and reasonable, and Jack hated the sound of it. “Jack. Jack, listen to me, okay? You need to listen to me. I don’t want you panicking on me right now, all right? We’ve still got some things to figure out, and I know you’re scared, but you can control it. You have to control it if you don’t want it to take over you.”

Jack stared at him with wide eyes, and his lungs felt constricted and too tight in his chest, as if his rib cage was collapsing in and draining every last breath of oxygen. The stitches in his face felt like barbs digging into his skin as adrenaline rushed through him, sending uncontrollable tremors through his body. His hands, clenched into fists so tight that they had begun to shake too, ached to hold on to something, to grasp at something tangible and solid as reality drifted away from him. His eyes darted around the room, and he didn’t realize what he was searching for until they landed on the deck of cards on the table.

“C-can…can I…” he stammered, trying to steady his voice, “can I have…the c-cards?”

Kellerman looked confused for a moment, then followed Jack’s stare to the table. He stood up without question, pulling off the rubber band and passing the deck to Jack, who clutched it like a child holding their favorite toy. At least they were _his,_ and he knew what they were. They were here, and couldn’t fade away from his memory even if he wanted them to. As if reassuring himself, he ran his thumb across the tops of the cards, flipping through them absently with distant eyes. His breath had steadied slightly, and and the world didn't feel so stifling anymore.

Kellerman eyed him thoughtfully. “Did someone give those to you?” he asked gently, and Jack’s head jerked up, his hands still wrapped around the cards.

“Jeannie.” he replied softly, then clarified, “My girlfriend. She gave them to me before I left.”

“You love her?”

Jack’s cheeks flushed as they always did when someone mentioned Jeannie, and he ducked his head, looking like a high school kid with a crush. “Yeah.”

A faint, nostalgic smile flitted across Kellerman’s face. “We’ll get you back to her, don’t worry.”

Jack’s face fell at the thought, and he resumed shuffling through the cards. "I don’t know…if she’ll care about me anymore.” He looked up hesitantly. “I mean, with…with _this.”_ Disgust and hurt shining in his eyes, he gestured to the still-bloody lesions cutting through his face.

_But she didn’t mind before, did she? I mean, she must have known. Your father…_

_He’s the one who did it, right?_

He let out a shaking breath and shook his head. “Unless she already knew. I can’t…”

_Yes, you can’t remember. We’ve all heard it once or a thousand times._

His hands fumbled, spilling the cards onto the bed. Jack shuffled them back into order, turning the deck face up. The card on the bottom stared up at him, and he froze, something whispering at the corner of his mind.

_“We gave him a smile.”_

Jack traced the letters running down the side of the card with numb fingers, his eyes latched onto the grinning figure with the jester’s hat juggling multicolored balls. 

_“To remind him that he was never anything more than what we all saw him as."_

He felt like his body was frozen, like he was lost out in the bitter cold winter night again with the harsh wind whipping around him. The voice in his head scared him, whispered memories that Jack couldn’t fully understand. But the fear, the horror… _that_ he could understand well enough. 

_"A fool.”_

Someone holding the card in front of his face, the laughter all around him, just like when his father had held the knife to his mouth…just like when…

When they had been in the prison…

When they had escaped.

_Tried._

Tried to escape.

And suddenly, Jack remembered. He didn’t remember why he had been captured, or what had happened after, but he remembered the gun, the man’s voice in his ear, the crack in the silence as he pulled the trigger. He remembered the blood pooling on the floor in a much too big, dark puddle. 

He remembered the betrayal shining in his friend’s eyes as the bullet sliced through the air.

His friend…

_Adams._

He remembered it now, even if he had no idea why he was in the prison or how he had gotten out. He remembered his plan, and how it had failed. How his friends had been shot dead in front of him like death row prisoners facing a firing squad. How _he_ had fired the final shot, condemned his only remaining ally to death by his own hand. 

“I…”

_I killed him._

He saw the truck explode… _what truck?…_ the one in the desert. He remembered now. The one that had been bombed. He was supposed to have stopped the bomber…it had been his job…

_You let them die._

The figure on the card was still grinning up at him.

_You’re a fool._

He was a soldier, he’d had a _purpose,_ and he’d failed. He’d been good for nothing back in Gotham, and he was good for nothing here. He was supposed to protect people, to keep them safe, and he couldn't even do that. He'd been given a job, a reason to exist beyond his own pitifully useless life, and he'd screwed it up. No matter where he went, not matter how he tried to change, it was always the same. It was like the world was trying to push him back down.

Something twisted inside him, burning with a lowly growing resentment. Maybe it was time to stop trying to fight back against the world. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be any better than this. It would make things a whole lot easier of he could just stop trying.

But no…he couldn’t quit. Not yet. Not when Jeannie was waiting for him. He had lost everything else, every chance of the life he’d wanted, and he wasn’t going to lose her too. She was his only reason to go on…he _had_ to do it for her, or he wouldn’t do it at all.

_Will she want you anymore? After all you’ve been through…after all you’ve done?_

_Will she want to spend her life with a killer?_

Jack tore his eyes away from the playing card with a shudder. He couldn’t let himself think that. Not now.

“Are you all right?” 

He looked up slowly at Kellerman, who was watching him cautiously with steepled fingers pressed to his chin, then back to the deck of cards in his hands. He flipped them over one by one contemplatively, watching the tremors continue to run through his fingers with a faraway sort of disdain. As if he was looking at someone else’s body, someone else’s life. Looking at it and thinking how pathetic it all was.

The man had asked him a question, and Jack summoned up the energy to answer it, keeping his gaze down on the cards he held tightly. That slowly burning ache inside him, that desire to simply give in and let the world take him where it wanted, drag him down to the level of the scum he deserved to be, was still there, no matter what he told himself. And somewhere in his mind, he knew it wasn’t going away. Now that it had sprung into being, it would stay forever, festering like an infected wound until he made his choice. But for now he had to hang in a sort of limbo until he could decide, because his head was still too muddled to say yes or no to anything at the moment, and also Kellerman had asked him something. He’d asked if he was all right. 

Jack finally looked up, a bitter semblance of a smile quirking at the corners of his mouth, drawing the stitches taut and sending a bitter flash of pain throughout all the nerves in his face.

“I will be.”

If he said the truth, that he wasn’t all right, he was afraid he would go down to that dark place and never return.


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

Three months passed, and Jack began to piece back together memories of his past. There were gaps and inconsistencies in some places, but after a while, he gave up and decided it was best to leave it alone. Some days he was certain his father had been the one who had carved that hideous smile into his face, other times he could remember the face of a prison guard looming over him with a gleaming knife. It changed every time, and it was useless trying to decide what was the truth. There were more important things to think about.

The lacerations that sliced through his cheeks had begun to heal, forming deep scars that curved upward from the sides of his mouth. Jack avoided looking into the mirror whenever he could, afraid of the deep, insatiable darkness that would rise up whenever he caught a glimpse of his ruined face in the reflection. It wasn’t quite anger…if it was, that would have been all right. At least he had a reason to feel angry. But it was something else, something he couldn’t explain even if he knew what it was. He only knew whenever he saw his own face, that feeling would creep up through him like a chill, and he was afraid that someday it might not go away. 

He had come so far without giving in…he couldn’t let the darkness take over him now. Not after everything that had happened.

He remembered the people who had died, too. The truckload of soldiers, Adams, his friends in the prison. They were hazy, sometimes faceless, figures, floating in and out of his memory, but they were there, and they would never go away. Sometimes at night, Jack was sure he saw them, creeping into the room to stare at him with their wide, dead eyes, their ghostly faces plastered with frozen smiles. The sight forced the memory of his old dreams back into his head, and after a while he stopped sleeping, forcing himself to stay awake until the sun began to break through the window the next morning. He felt a terrible sense of stagnancy…after the endless terrible things that happened, didn’t he deserve to be plagued with these horrors.

Those times, his mind would combat his thoughts with, _You don’t deserve anything. You killed those people, what you deserve is for them to stay with you. Forever._

_If you didn’t want this, you shouldn’t have killed them._

Some nights, despite his best efforts, his eyes would fall closed, and the smiling dead figures would begin closing in. He would wake up with a gasp, sitting up in bed and climbing out from under the covers. Trying to stay awake, he would splash cold water on his face in the bathroom, and his eyes would catch his reflection in the mirror. Although he tried to ignore it whenever he could, sometimes he wouldn't be able to drag his gaze away. He would stare unblinkingly back at the face in the glass, running his tongue over the flawed skin at the edges of his mouth and watching the dark fire begin to burn in the back of his eyes. 

The ghostly figures of his dead friends would gather behind him, and he wouldn’t be able to repress a shudder, their whispers filling his head until he was certain he really was going crazy this time. 

It took him longer than it should have to realize he had become his own nightmare.

One morning Jack walked into the living room to see Kellerman writing something on a piece of stationary. The older man looked up when he entered, setting down his pen. “I was able to figure out where your old unit is stationed now. If you want your discharge so you can go home, you’ll need to write to them and let them know what happened. I’ve written out what you’ll need to say.” He passed the paper to Jack, who took it without bothering to look down at the writing. He’d realized over the past month that an honorable discharge was out of the question, and berated himself for not having realized that before. He had been sent away in the first place for allowing his own allies to be killed, after all. And then _that_ unit had been annihilated by the mercenaries, and to top it all off, he’d had to kill his only remaining fellow soldiers to escape on his own. He’d _killed_ them, and not in the line of duty. Only to fill his own selfish purposes.

And he couldn’t lie to his superiors. They would find out, and that would be the end of any hope for a normal life. Was he a war criminal? A soldier gone rogue? He didn’t know at this point, but he was certain of one thing. What he had done did _not_ warrant him any sort of honorable way out of his position. And he was certainly not writing anything the unit to tell them where he was. Not if he wanted to ever go back home.

Kellerman, unaware of his thoughts, continued, “I thought you could sign it, then we’ll send it off to them.” He sat back in his swivel chair, steepling his fingers. “I’ve arranged a flight home for you on the next plane that leaves from the airport tomorrow. Not a passenger plane, but because of the urgency of this situation, I convinced them to let you join them. They're sending a chemical shipment to Gotham, so it'll be a straight shot. Lucky for you, I guess, because that never happens. Just fate dealing you a good hand.”

Jack, still holding the letter like it was a bomb, wasn’t listening. He imagined the unit receiving the letter, getting news of his whereabouts, then coming after him. He’d be on the run from some of the most powerful people he knew, and he had no good excuse. He’d broken the rules, he’d failed the jobs they’d given them, they had the _right_ to do whatever they wanted. But he couldn’t come to terms with that. Not after having everything he’d ever wanted taken away from him.

He knew what he would do. He’d go back to Gotham, find Jeannie, and they could settle down somewhere quietly. Maybe in the Narrows, or maybe with some of the money she’d been given by her parents. It wasn’t the glamorous future he’d always tirelessly dreamed of for them, but he had become disenchanted with life itself, and anything besides what he had gone through in the past year would be like heaven. 

But he couldn’t let anyone find out.

He faintly heard Kellerman still talking. “…I have the ticket in my desk drawer, and I’ll give you what you need to get home. No…”

“I’m not sending this.” Jack broke in, placing the letter back on the table. Kellerman looked up.

“What?”

“I’m not sending it back. I’m going home, but no one needs to know about it.” He paused, his hand resting on the back of the armchair beside him to steady himself. “They can’t know about it.”

“What do you mean, Jack?” Kellerman had sensed the tense edge that had taken over the younger man’s tone, and was watching him carefully. Jack remembered he was a trained professional who had studied lunatics back in Gotham City, and wondered if the man considered him crazy. How would he _not,_ after everything he had learned about Jack?

Well, after what he was about to learn, he would know it for sure.

“I…” He drew in a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. “I don’t want anyone knowing about me. I just want to start over, and I can't do that if the army knows where I am. Or anyone else.”

Kellerman leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "Did you do something you don't want them knowing about?" His tone was still cautious, like he was trying to talk someone out of suicide as they stood on the edge of a roof. 

Jack gave him a suspicious, sideways glance. The man had been nothing but trustworthy, and Jack knew he would have died without his help. He was the closest thing Jack had to a friend, even if they knew next to nothing about each other. But he was asking questions that Jack didn’t want to answer, questions that could result in him being behind bars for the rest of his life. 

And he had made a promise to Jeannie. Even if he couldn’t give her everything he wanted to, he had to at least keep his promise. That he would come back home.

He couldn’t jeopardize that.

“I’m not sending that letter.” His tone was steady now, and he felt a strange sense of calm pervade his senses. _Calm_ wasn’t the right word…it was more of a sense of confidence. He wasn’t sending the letter, and no one could make him. If they did…

If they did, then he would simply stop them. He’d done it before.

A tiny piece of his mind was still afraid, still screaming at him to stop, to think about what he was doing. He had made too many mistakes, and another would surely drive him over the edge. Over into the darkness that he had been trying to suppress. 

There was no coming back from that.

“Jack. You can’t just disappear off the radar. You have to take responsibility for yourself.”

“No.” He didn’t understand this newfound detachment that had taken over, but he wasn’t wholly opposed to it. It was almost…freeing, in a way. He found himself wanting to smile. His mind turned back to the nightmares.

_No, stay focused. Don’t let it take over you. Don’t think about them._

_Right now. That’s all that matters. Nothing before it, nothing after. Just now. You’ll figure out the rest as you go. After all, you’re not one for planning. You should know that better than anyone._

His father’s voice was in his head again.

_“You’re a lot of things, son, but you’re not a planner.”_

His hand tightened on the back of the armchair as he tried to ground himself and forget about the memories that persisted in the back of his mind. “You don’t understand. I really can’t.”

The man shook his head slowly. “So you’ve done something you shouldn’t have.”

_Yes. I killed him. I killed him when I could have died a hero’s death along with him, like I was supposed to. I could have stuck to the rules like him and never felt a day of guilt._

The darkness was back, stronger than before.

_But you should know there are no rules, and there are no heroes._

_Only those clever enough to survive._

“I did what I had to do.” Jack said slowly, and for the first time since he had fired the gun in the dark room of the prison, he believed it. He felt the heavy weight lift from inside him, and he really did smile this time, not because he had wanted to kill Adams, but because he finally understood. If he’d followed the rules, where would he be? Dead in the frozen woods, buried beneath wilted foliage and left to rot. The rules weren’t there to protect him, they were there to make him abide by what _they_ wanted him to do. Jack wasn’t sure who _they_ were, but it didn’t really matter. Nothing mattered, because he was finished with the rules. He was finished feeling guilty for breaking them. 

He was alive because he’d been smart enough to realize that the rules were just a trap. A ploy to blind him to the reality that he could do anything… _anything_ he wanted. When it came down to it, what was stopping him? What stopped him when he was younger and he’d wanted to run away from home to escape his father’s incessant beatings? What had stopped him from letting Jeannie back into his life when all he’d wanted was to be with her forever?

_Fear._ Fear of breaking the rules. That was what had stopped him, had suppressed him from getting what he wanted. It really _was_ ridiculous. He’d spent his entire life restrained by fear, by some ingrained belief that anything really mattered. 

He could live however he wanted, as long as he lived without rules.

“I did what I had to do.” he repeated, conviction seeping into his tone. Kellerman frowned. “I didn’t have a choice, and I wanted to stay alive. If that meant I had to kill him, then…” He broke off, shooting a quick glance toward the man at the desk. 

“You killed someone?" the words sounded harsh and cruel when they were spoken by the former asylum doctor, and Jack wanted to tell him that it wasn't like that, it wasn't a heartless murder. It was self-defense, the only option available. But he knew all those excuses would ring hollow. Adams was still dead, and Jack would never be free if anyone found out. He looked at Kellerman calmly, and the man stood up slowly, his shoulders tensing as he saw the darkness building in the younger man's eyes. 

“Yes.” Jack said softly, deciding it was useless to argue the point. He _had_ killed him, after all. “They gave us a choice, and I made the smart decision.”

“They would have killed _you_ otherwise.” the doctor murmured.

“Both of us. He was going to die anyway unless he shot me. There wasn’t any reason for both of us to die.”

Kellerman drew in a long breath. “I thought that something like that had happened. I saw it in your face.”

Jack frowned. “What does that mean?”

He shook his head. “It…it doesn’t mean anything. I only meant that I suspected you had gotten your hands dirty in your escape. You would look so scared, like you were expecting someone to come and take you away for what you’d done. I felt badly for you.” he concluded, tacking on the last sentence too quickly for sincerity. Jack wondered if the man was afraid and trying to be nicer than usual.

“I guess I was.” He folded up the letter, then walked across the room, tossing the paper into the fireplace. Watching it disintegrate into ashes within the flames, Jack licked his lips. It was a habit he was picking up, a nervous tic from his childhood coupled with the intrusive scars that jutted out at the corners of his mouth. “So you get why I can’t exactly send this letter.”

“Jack, listen. I’m not going to turn you in to the police or anything like that. I don’t think you deserve to go through even more trouble. You were doing what you thought was right, and…”

“No, I _know_ it was right!” Jack spun around to face Kellerman, his voice reverberating in the silent room. He paused for a moment, watching the other man stare at him in increasing worry. “It had to be right, because if I hadn’t done anything, we would both be dead, and where’s the sense in that? If he was going to be killed anyway, why should I sacrifice myself as well? Honor? Dignity, maybe?" He shook his head scornfully. "There's no such thing. Not when you're locked in a prison underground, and not when you're holding a gun while your captors count down to your own death. When you're living in anarchy, where there's no one making the rules, you have to go with what keeps you alive. Not with what makes you feel like you're a _hero._ Because heroes don't exist.” 

There was a heavy silence in the room, broken only by the crackling of the burning wood in the fireplace. Kellerman grasped the back of his desk chair tightly, and Jack could see his knuckles had turned white. “You need to calm down, Jack. You’re letting everything get to you all at once, and it’s clouding your judgement. You need to realize…”

“I don’t think my judgement’s clouded.” Jack cut in, pacing across the room like a predator stalking his prey. He kept his stare trained on Kellerman and his head low, glancing up at him with a heavy-eyed expression that had become so common after sleepless nights that it felt like a part of him now. “I think I’ve come to some very reasonable conclusions about the world. Would you like to hear them?” It was as if it wasn’t him speaking anymore, and he was watching, like a ghost suspended from its former body. Yet at the same time, it was wholly him, it was his mind, his words, his thoughts that overflowed and dragged him into this new self that wasn’t quite who he used to be. 

Kellerman’s expression become placating. “Sure. Okay. You tell me.” He motioned for Jack to sit down, but his gesture was ignored.

“Here’s the thing.” Jack was standing on the other side of the desk now, his hands placed flat against the smooth, polished wood. He surveyed the various items sitting on the desk top, his eyes lingering on a silver letter opener. Kellerman followed his gaze, listening silently. “I don’t want anyone to know what happened. I write to them, tell them I killed an ally to escape the men who had us captured, who knows what will happen? For all you and I know, they could let me go free and live my life as I want to. But they could also send over an entire unit to escort me back to some prison cell where I’ll spend the rest of my life. And I really don't want that. What I want,” his fingers closed around the cool metal of the letter opener, “is to go home to Jeannie, and we can live how we’ve always wanted to. No one to bother us, no one to tell us what to do. No one breathing down our necks looking for me. If I send that letter, I’m putting all of that in jeopardy."

“I understand, but…”

“Now _you,”_ Jack continued, unfazed by the interruption, “are the only person in the world besides her who knows who I am and that I’m still alive. Let everyone else think I’m dead. Let them assume I was killed in the attack on that village back where we were stationed, or something like that. I don’t mind. I don’t mind not being anyone. The only problem is you. I might leave, and you might send an urgent message straight to my unit explaining how I’ve gone rogue and need to be hunted down. Would you do that to me, Kellerman?”

  
The older man shook his head warily. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, you see, I can’t really take your word for that.” Jack said, almost apologetically. He held the letter opener up, his expression twisting with a sort of mock sympathy. He wasn’t really thinking anymore…he wasn’t trying to think. Things were just happening, and it was easier to go along with it all without question. “Trust isn’t something I like to give out to everyone I meet. And as it stands now, you’re in my way. I want the life I’ve always planned on having, and you might be the only person on earth who could stop me.”

“Jack…”

“No, no, I’m not finished.” He shook his head. “Anyway, you could cause me some serious problems. I don’t want that, obviously.” Leaning forward until they were almost touching, Jack tapped the letter opener against the desk. The sound echoed in the silence and beads of sweat stood out on Kellerman’s pallid forehead. “I just want everyone to leave me alone.”

“I give you my word, Jack. I promise I won’t let anyone know. You deserve to get what you want, have the life you want, and I won’t stand in the way of that. You can believe me.”

Jack twisted his mouth to the side as best he could, feeling the scars stretch on his face with a faint sting. “I could. I _could_ choose to believe you. I could also stick this thing through your throat and make sure you never say anything again for good. That seems to make the most sense to me.”

“I won’t say anything.”

"I know, but it's so easy to say that when you're being threatened, isn't it? I wonder what you'll do a week from now when I'm gone."

“I’ll leave you alone, I swear.”

“See, I want to believe that, Kellerman. I really do. I just _don’t_ believe it.” Jack walked around the desk until they were mere inches away from one another, never breaking eye contact. He felt something new surging through him, something that felt a lot like power. He liked it. “I’m sorry about this, really. I always did appreciate you helping me and, you know, saving my life. You’re probably gonna wish you hadn’t done that now, aren’t you?”

“You…”

“I’m going to stop you right there. If this is something about ‘you still have good in you’, save it. I don’t need you telling me that. I already know it. I’m not a bad person. I’m going to go home, find Jeannie, and we’ll be happy together. There’s nothing wrong in that. But you were right.” He patted Kellerman on the shoulder, feeling the man shudder. “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty doing it.”

The letter opener felt like a knife sliding through butter, and Jack watched in silent fascination as as the man’s throat erupted into a fountain of bright red blood. His eyes grew wide and he clawed desperately at the air, garbled choking sounds coming from his mouth. Jack let go of his shoulder and stepped back, watching as Kellerman collapsed to the ground in a writhing heap. He turned away, staring into the fire until the sounds stopped and the body on the floor lay motionless.

"Sorry about that. I did appreciate everything you've done."

Dropping the bloodied stick of metal onto the carpet without a second glance, Jack left the living room and went back to the bedroom, sitting down on the tidily made bed and picking up the deck of cards. He shuffled through them, laying them out for a game of solitaire. It was as if he was existing in a fog, his mind still racing to catch up with everything that had just happened, and his body going into neutral mode, working on something that came so naturally he could do in his sleep. He realized, as he laid the cards down quietly one at a time, he had killed the man who had saved him, left his body lying unceremoniously in a puddle of blood, but he didn’t feel anything. Only a faintly tingling whisper of exhilaration that coursed through his veins as he sat with crossed legs on the bed, flipping cards over with an impassive expression on his face.

He played for a full five minutes and had gathered the cards back up into a pile before realizing there were streaks of blood on his fingertips. Kellerman's blood. Jack glanced down in dismay at the ruined card in his hand, mildly disgruntled that he had defaced it further. First it had been his blood from when his face was split open, dripping down onto the laughing court jester, now it was stained even further. He sighed, brushing his thumb across the picture thoughtfully. The tiny figure in the in the cap adorned with bells was still grinning, even after being practically drenched in blood, his smile stretching from ear to ear. Jack's free hand touched the side of his face, his fingers brushing against the scars. 

_“We gave him a smile.”_

He hated those words, hated that he still didn’t know who had spoken them, although he could hear the voice in his head. He stared down in resentment at the playing card, his dark eyes smoldering. Someone had done this to him, had warped his mind and twisted him into nothing more than a hollow killing machine. Jack clutched the card tighter, listening the the wind howl outside in the silent house. Maybe it wasn’t just _someone_ , but a lifetime of being beaten down, broken, and shoved back together again. Maybe it wasn’t his fault he had finally cracked. Maybe he was just a victimof circumstance.

No, whoever who had done this knew what they were doing. They knew they were turning him into a monster. 

Jack closed his eyes. _Monster is such an ugly word._ And it wasn’t right…he wasn’t being unnecessarily evil. Only…he searched for the right word.

_Self-sustaining._

He was fighting the system that had harnessed him in…the system of rules and boundaries and prison bars that had held him captive for so long. 

He wasn’t evil, and he wasn’t a monster.

He just…knew better.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two

Jack stood in the shadows that shrouded the corners of the docks, staring up at the billows of black smoke that poured from a trash fire a few streets down. The acrid smell burned the air, and some of the ashes, caught in the wind, floated down to the potholed streets like grey snowflakes. A boat was floating leisurely in the harbor, and a crew of dock workers, silent and enduring, unloaded the heavy crates and dragged them to the nearest warehouse, not stopping to look up or speak to one another. A stray cat ran by, pursued by a laughing gang of teenage boys who brandished homemade slingshots and kitchen knives, and the water lapping at the dock’s edge was grey and gleaming with the dark sheen of oil. Jack drew in a deep breath, pushing his face deeper into the turned-up collar of the trench coat he’d taken from Kellerman’s house before leaving for the airport the day before.

_I’m home._

The flight to Gotham had been lost in an exhausted haze. Jack wasn’t sure how the former doctor had convinced the pilot to let him onto the shipment plane, but he had, and no questions were asked. He suspected the pilot had been paid just enough to not say anything. Jack had kept his face mostly hidden, hoping to avoid nosy questions, and took nothing with him but the coat, his deck of cards, and a knife he’d found in the desk drawer. He’d wondered if Kellerman had kept it in case he’d wanted to kill Jack in his sleep. 

_Shoulda taken that opportunity when he had the chance._

Gotham was exactly the same as he remembered it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On one hand, it would be as hard as ever to struggle through life in this decrepit hell-hole of a city. But really, he wouldn’t have wanted to come home to a place without flaws. Here, he could fit in. He wouldn’t be noticed, even with the scars and the newfound stoop in his shoulders that he never remembered to correct.

Jack had caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a discarded mirror set outside an old apartment building by a dumpster, and had stared at it with a sort of horrified fascination. The figure staring back didn’t even look like him anymore, not like the boy who had left the city more than a year ago, eager-eyed and hopeful that somehow, his haphazard plan for success spurring him on. Now he saw a gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed man in the mirror’s cracked reflection, shoulder-length hair falling over his face and dark circles like bruises gathering under his eyes. The scars, although they were mostly healed, were impossible to ignore, and they twisted up along his face, inflamed and angry-looking. 

He turned away from the mirror, shoving his hands into his pockets and starting off down an alleyway. Someone grabbed at his sleeve, most likely asking for money, and Jack jerked away sharply. All he wanted was to go straight to Jeannie’s apartment and tell her everything, but something deep inside him rebelled. Maybe it was because he was afraid she wouldn’t recognize him anymore, or would think he had done something bad. 

Well, she would be right about that, but he couldn’t let her know it. 

So he found himself back in the all-too-familiar alleyway where he had spent most nights in the months leading up to his departure from Gotham. It was still uninhabited by any other drifters, and the graffiti still sat emblazoned on the wall. It was comforting in a way, knowing that the city hadn’t changed and most likely never would, no matter how much _he_ had. He used to hate Gotham, hated the darkness and grittiness and abject despair that leaked from every pore of the city’s framework, but now it felt like home, like he was supposed to be here. He had been broken down into a part of the city, a fragment of the darkness he had grown used to. 

He finally belonged here. That would have made him angry a year ago. It would have caused him to protest that he did _not_ belong, that he was better than what the city stood for, that he was going to rise above it all. 

A lot had happened since then.

Jack shuffled through the deck of cards, his tongue habitually running over his lips. The feeling of the cards shifting in his hands had grown familiar to the point of comfort. He stared absently up at the sky, listening to the noise of the city around him. A spotlight on the distance shone faintly against the clouds, a dark, blurred shadow in the middle. Jack squinted, trying to figure out where the light was coming from. He didn’t remember ever seeing a spotlight in Gotham before…but with the way his memory had been deceiving him recently, he could have forgotten about it. 

He heard raised voices on the next street over and got to his feet, glancing around the corner of the alleyway. He saw a girl trying to wrestle her purse away from a hulking figure of a man, her eyes wide and her face white from fear. She was shouting at him to stop, to leave her alone, and he was telling her to shut up and let him have the purse.

"Or you'll regret it." he finished, leering at her dangerously. Jack stood at a distance, watching the scene play out. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered faintly if he should step in and help. But the man was at least a hundred pounds heavier than him, stood at well above six feet, and looked like too much of an unbeatable force for intervention to be a smart choice. So he stood back and listened to the situation play out, wondering why the girl had been walking alone in the dark corners of the Narrows at this time of night and _not_ thinking she could have been mugged.

Jack’s eyes widened as a dark shadow suddenly swooped down out of nowhere, accompanied by a whooshing noise like a cloak being theatrically swirled in an old movie. He jumped back, startled, and stared as the shadow landed on the ground between him and the fighting pair, then rose up to a standing position. It was facing away from Jack, but he could see pointed spikes sticking out of the top of the figure’s head, and a dark mass ( _cape?_ ) falling from its shoulders. The cape moved, and Jack could see the man who had attacked the girl staring at the shape with a horrified expression on his face. Even from his position in the alley, Jack could hear his petrified gasps.

“Wait, don’t hurt me! I swear, I won’t…”

The shape moved again, and the man broke down, blubbering and making excuses and shoving the purse back at the girl before turning on his heel and running down the sidewalk. The shadow followed in quick pursuit, stepping in front of the retreating figure and causing him to back away, his hands rising in front of his face as he tried to give a garbled explanation for his actions. 

“Please, please leave me alone. I won’t…I won’t do anything…just don’t…don’t…just go away. Please…c’mon, I can give you what you want.” He fished in his pocket, digging up a wad of cash and shoving it at the figure, who ignored it. “Come on, man, leave me alone.”

Jack watched in fascination. Whatever this shadowy… _thing_ …was, it must have had quite the reputation to reduce such a man to a sniveling wreck. He didn't remember a caped dark shape apprehending criminals in the streets a year ago, and he was fairly sure that, no matter how many memory slips he was suffering, he would remember something like _that_. Before he could form another thought, the shape lifted off from the ground, rising into the air effortlessly and disappearing into the rooftops above. Jack followed the ascent with a wide-eyed stare, not sure what he had just witnessed. He turned his gaze back to the man on the street, who had gathered his coat around him and was now racing off into the darkness. The girl was still standing on the street corner, clutching her purse and staring around her with terrified eyes.

Stepping out from the shadow of the alleyway, Jack walked up to the girl. She jumped when she saw him, backing away. He pulled the collar of his coat higher up around his face. If she saw the scars, he’d scare her even more. He kept his voice quiet. “What was that?”

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her chest like she was cold. Jack tilted his head to the side. “You don’t know?”

Finally finding her voice, the girl turned her stare to him. “Of _course_ I know who it was.” Her words trembled, but there was an edge of incredulity that made Jack annoyed. Was he supposed to know everything about Gotham City all of a sudden? Was it a normal occurrence to have a dark Zorro-thing waltzing around stopping crime? He didn’t remember the city being _that_ crazy, but anything was possible.

“So who was it, then?”

The girl’s eyes widened even more and she looked him up and down, as if he was an escaped lunatic from Arkham. “Are you from here?”

Jack stared back defensively. “I used to live here, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

She let out a breath, still trying to calm her nerves. “That was the Batman.”

Jack couldn’t stifle a disbelieving laugh, the sound grating in his throat. “ _Who?_ ”

The girl shushed him and Jack scowled. “The _Batman._ You don’t know who he is?”

“No.”

“He’s been picking off gangs and all kinds of criminals. There was an outbreak of some sort of gas last year from a guy at Arkham, and the Batman stopped him. A lot of people think he’s just an urban legend to scare the criminals. I used to think that too, but..." She trailed off, her eyes still wide and her expression frozen in shock. Jack raised an eyebrow. 

“So he works for the police?”

“No, he’s a…a lone wolf, I guess. A vigilante. He doesn’t answer to anyone, and I think that’s why people are scared of him.” She gathered up her purse in her arms like a shield and backed away, the realization she was talking to a perfect stranger alone in the dark finally setting in. “Look, I…I have to go.” She turned and raced off, her heels clacking against the street. Jack watched her leave, lost in thought.

_Lone wolf, huh? Looks like you and me have got that in common, Batman, or whoever you are. We don’t take orders from them. Kinda funny, isn’t it? How the people like you just because you clean up the streets? What would they think, I wonder, if you didn’t take down crime? Would they love you then? Just shows you how deluded this city really is._

Jack wasn’t afraid of the dark shadowy thing that had appeared out of nowhere. He felt a sense of familiarity to it…or him…or whatever. Not camaraderie, certainly. Jack had no wish to be associated with a vigilante terrorist creature. But he understood the thing’s sentiment. After all, he knew the dangers of following the rules all too well. 

_I’d like to see what would happen once they don’t need you anymore._

 

\+ + + + + + + +

 

Jack stood outside the apartment building, his breath stuttering in his chest as he stared up at the red bricks and windows above him. His fingers curled in on themselves into tight fists to stop them from shaking, and he bit his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood. He’d thought so many times that he would die, that he would never see this place again, that all his work and effort and troubles had been for nothing. He had been certain he was going to die in the prison, certain that going home was only ever going to be a distant dream. 

But now he was standing here in the drizzling rain, scared out of his mind. 

_What if she’s stopped caring about me?_

_No, don’t think that. You can’t think that. You’ve come all this way, you’re not going to give up on yourself now._

_She's the one who said she would always wait for you. Always. She let you come back after you pushed her away. She never stopped loving you. If you think that’s going to change, then you’re crazy._

Drawing a long breath, Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and started up the stairs, ducking his head to avoid the stream of rainwater flowing from the gutter spout. He pushed open the door to the apartment lobby and stepped inside, running his hands through his hair and trying to look at least a bit more presentable. Even if Jeannie still loved him, that didn’t mean he could just barge in looking like a mess. 

He still had _some_ semblance of dignity. 

Turning his back on the old lady sitting at the front desk to avoid her curious stare, Jack tried to think of what to say. She probably thought he was dead, or at least missing in action. He didn’t know what sort of decision the unit had reached on his whereabouts. But it was likely not something that affirmed his wellbeing.

_Hi, I’m back. I know you thought I was dead, but, well…here I am._ No, that wouldn’t work. Jack frowned, trying to think. _I wish I could’ve told you before, but I just got back._ Excuses were cowardly. But how else was he supposed to justify showing up at her apartment without warning? She would think she was seeing a ghost.

Maybe the best way was to not plan out any elaborate speech and let everything take its own course. Even if it wasn’t a great idea, it was better than anything else he’d thought of. Straightening his shoulders, Jack started up the narrow, dark flight of stairs. It reminded him unpleasantly of his own former home, and hurried up as quickly as he could before claustrophobia could set in. 

He still remembered her apartment number. Forty-seven. Slowly, Jack approached the familiar door, bracing himself for any sort of reaction. Before he got any closer, the door opened. He jumped back, his shoulders tensing, and bent his head. Backing into the shadows, he watched as a terribly familiar looking man stepped out of the doorway, looking over his shoulder and laughing. Memories came crashing back, memories of seeing Jeannie arm-in-arm with the rich boy she’d almost married before leaving him behind. What was his name? Mike? It was something like that, and Jack had no doubt he was looking straight at the same person, aged a few years, but unmistakably the same face, the same terribly perfect face. His heart thudded painfully in his chest. 

What was he doing here?

He watched as Mike leaned against the doorframe, his face lighting up as he said something and laughed again. Jack stepped closer silently, listening. He heard another voice, so familiar that he felt his heart twist and his throat tighten with emotion. And she was laughing too.

Laughing, and not with him. 

She was _happy_ without him.

Jack backed away, his body numb and his eyes dry. He didn’t know what to feel. Maybe it wasn’t what he thought it was. Maybe they were just friends. He almost laughed at the thought.

_Friends don’t look at each other like that._

He hadn’t even seen Jeannie’s face, but by the sound of her voice, he could guess how she was looking at the guy. The way her eyes sparkled, just like he’d imagined for endless months as he fought to get back to her. She had _laughed,_ she’d been happy. 

_You’re misunderstanding it all. You have to be._

Jack turned and ran down the hall, down the stairs and out into the rain, which had begun to pour down with more intensity than before. He shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes and swore he wouldn’t cry, it wasn’t too late for them and whatever had happened…well, maybe he had misread it. Maybe there was nothing going on. He just needed to go back. Be brave and go back.

He shivered in the rain, turning around yet again and shuffling back to the apartment steps. He paused for a moment, his body rebelling against himself and begging him to turn and make a run for it, run back to the safety of solitude. 

_You’ve gotten this far, don’t back out now._

Ignoring the doubly curious stare from the lady at the desk, Jack walked back inside and up the stairs. The door sat open and he slowed his pace, painfully self-conscious of his bedraggled appearance. His throat felt constricted and his breath was strained, but he lifted his hand and knocked, ducking his head to hide his face in the coat collar.

What did that matter when she would have to see it all anyway?

He heard approaching footsteps, then a heavy, prolonged silence. He kept his eyes glued to the ground, waiting. Finally, a voice broke the silence.

“Can I help you?”

Jack drew his shoulders together, wishing he could disappear. He was so tense that his shoulder, which had healed months ago, had begun to ache again. He drew a short, agonized breath, and tilted his head up, looking into Jeannie’s eyes. He watched as her face slowly drained of color and she grabbed onto the door handle, steadying herself as she swayed on her feet. Jack half reached out helplessly, unable to tell if she was scared, repulsed, or something else entirely. They were silent for a moment, staring at each other, until Jeannie spoke, her voice splitting the air like static.

“Jack?”

It was breathless, unbelieving. There was no joy or relief in her tone, and her face, slack with shock, didn’t turn up into a smile. She only stared at him, her eyes enormous and searching. He saw them latch onto the scars and turned his head away.

“Yes.”

It was no more than a whisper, broken and weak, and Jack hated how terribly _uncertain_ he sounded. As if he didn’t even know himself anymore.

Another voice interrupted them, coming from inside the apartment. “Jeannie, is everything all right?” Jack gritted his teeth. It was _him._ The man who had made her laugh. 

She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Jack’s face as they flitted back and forth, taking in every flaw, every change since she had seen him last. He knew he didn’t look the same, he looked haggard and worn and _pathetic,_ but it still hurt to see that look in her eyes. That look he’d never seen before.

She _pitied_ him.

Mike appeared behind Jeannie, his hand coming up to rest on her shoulder. Jack didn’t look at him. “What’s going on?”

“Mike, this…" Jeannie paused, her words dying off. She looked at Jack helplessly, her eyes still clouded in shock. Instinctively, he felt for the cards in his pocket, his fingers closing over them possessively. Grounding him. Keeping him from turning and running away.

“Who are you?” Mike’s voice was loud and abrasive, and Jack shrank away, furious at how pliable he was when faced with anger. Resentment shot through him…he’d been forced to fear anger, _taught_ that it meant pain and humiliation, trained to be scared. His mind was a weapon against him, ensnaring him in his own deep-rooted fears, trapping him in his instincts that had been built up from a lifetime of being broken down. 

He hated it.

He hated the people who had made him like this.

He hated the man holding onto Jeannie for bringing those instincts back to life.

Jeannie was the one to answer, her voice still breathless, like she had been punched in the stomach. “I told you he’d come back.”

Jack looked up at that, surveying Mike’s bemused expression and Jeannie’s ashen face with desperate, wary eyes. He wanted to say something, to defend himself, but the words caught in his throat.

“What are you talking about?”

“Mike, it’s _him.”_ she whispered, as if Jack wasn’t standing in the doorway with them. “He’s…”

“He’s the one who you dumped me for?” Jack noticed Mike staring at him now, his expression a mixture of confusion and fascinated horror. He probably _did_ look terrible, but couldn’t the guy get his eyes back in his head for a moment?

“You’re alive.” Jeannie’s voice was softer now, and she stepped forward hesitantly, reading her hand out to brush against his cheek. Jack recoiled, staring at her, eyes shining with betrayal. She stepped back, hurt. “Jack, I…”

“You said forever.” She stiffened at his voice, and he realized how much it had changed since she had seen him last. It had grown more hoarse, the words lower and more on edge. He’d been so used to whispering in the prison cell that sometimes he forgot he was still doing it, and the pitch would switch without warning. Just another thing he could no longer control. “You said you'd wait for me."

“They told me…” She put her hands over her own mouth, shaking her head desperately. Mike was watching them in growing confusion.

“That I was dead?” Jack filled in sharply, his eyes flashing. “Didn’t take you long to mourn, did it?”

  
“Jack…” She reached out again, and he pushed her hand away, stepping back into the hall. He kept his eyes fixed on her as they burned with angry, unshed tears. 

“Don’t.” He turned sharply and walked off, ignoring her pleas.

“Jack, don’t go! Please, don’t! I can explain this to you…I thought…Jack, listen to me!”

  
He ran his thumb over the edge of the cards in his pocket, listening to them snap together like the echo of machine gunfire. He wanted to shout back at her, wanted to rush back into the apartment and strangle Mike with his bare hands and then…he didn’t even know what. He couldn’t think. Everything he’d waited for, everything he’d fought for, it was all crashing down around him. Up in flames, like everything else he’d ever done. She was his world, his reason for enduring, his purpose. She had told him forever and didn’t realize what she’d done when she broke that promise. 

He remembered sitting with her on the rooftop of his old apartment building, watching the sun set over the maze of rooftops and holding her hand. She’d been afraid of the edge, telling him she would fall, until he’d shown her that it wasn’t really all that scary. That she wouldn’t fall unless someone pushed her, and that would never happen while he was around.

Jack stumbled into the alley alongside the apartment building, leaning his head against the wall and ignoring the way the rain pounded down around him. He dragged his hand down the rough red bricks, savoring the sting as it tore at the skin. It was _real_ pain, not the agonizing phantom ache that closed in on all sides, stifling him. His lips trembled and he closed his eyes tightly to keep the tears from falling. 

_I thought you would be the one to save me._

_Not the one who pushed me off the edge._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a couple more chapters to go, folks! hope you're enjoying it...let me know what you think in the comments :)


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

“Three guys. It’ll be a quick job. In and out, bring us the goods, then walk away with your share.” The man seated across the table from Jack swirled his whisky in the water-spotted glass with one hand and pushed a wad of bills toward him with the other. “We could use a sharpshooter like you on the team.”

Jack eyed the money warily, waiting for a catch. “What’s the job?”

“It’s real easy. You go in the back, one of the guys opens the safe, and you get out of there. Anyone tries to stop you,” he pantomimed shooting a gun, “you take them down.”

Jack contemplated the offer, his eyes latched onto the money. There was more cash sitting on the table between the two of them than he had ever had, let alone seen, in his entire life. “So this shipment’s going straight to the mob?”

In the days following his return to Gotham, he’d heard about how the Falcone and Maroni families had taken over practically every branch of crime in the city. The Mob, as they were being called, claimed percentages of the large-scale crimes, and ordered raids and break-ins to big companies to stock their every-growing supply of money, stored away into banks that survived off their payroll. At first Jack had scoffed at the idea that so much power could stem from so few people, but it soon became apparent that Gotham was operating under the influence of a huge crime ring, and the influence came from much more than just a few gang lords. The Mob was everywhere, infiltrating companies and organizations without any hindrance from the police, and Jack had seen an opportunity after witnessing a botched break-in to a non-Mob bank, where the criminals had left their goods behind after the bank’s manager had opened fire on them. He had come to one of the bosses who ran the Narrows, offering his skill with a gun in exchange for a share in the profits. Two weeks later, the man had arranged a meeting, telling Jack he had an opportunity for him.

Now they were sitting in one of the seedier bars at the south side of town, making arrangements for a raid on the biggest company in the city, Wayne Enterprises. Jack had seen the towering skyscraper upon his return to the city, and had marveled at how one man could so easily run practically all of Gotham’s business, just because he was born into money.

The raid, he was told, was to take a shipment of newly imported weapons, mostly guns, that were stored away in one of the company's most secure vaults. He was supposed to act as one of the lookouts, taking down any guards who passed by. He had no doubt that he could do it, after all, the only reason he'd been allowed to stay in the army after the botched situation with the bomber and the truck was because of his skill with a gun, but he was hesitant about working for an organization more powerful than him. They would have control, they would regulate what he received as payment after the job was done. 

Still, it was better than sitting numbly in an alley day after day, forgetting to eat and sleep and wondering why he bothered to stay alive.

“Yes, Falcone’s taking charge of the operation after your guys get it out of the safe. It should be a quick job for you, we only need you as the lookout.”

Jack nodded, reaching for the cash on the table, but the man slid it away, tucking it into the breast pocket of his dinner jacket. “Show us you can do it first, then you get the money.”

The next week, Jack followed three other mob lackeys to the loading dock behind Wayne Enterprises main building. He watched as they managed to unlock the door after disabling the ground level alarm system, and followed them inside quietly, his hand resting on the loaded pistol he’d tucked into his belt. Stepping into the air-conditioned lower level of the tower, Jack found himself wondering how he’d gotten himself here. He’d come home trying to start over, to fade away into the rest of the city and live out his life quietly. Yet somehow, here he was, gripping a gun and breaking into the office building of one of Gotham’s most influential men. Not to mention billionaire. 

_You’re insane._

A whispered voice broke through his thoughts, and Jack looked up to see one of the other men staring at him. “You wait here. We’re going in.”

He nodded, backing up against the wall as the others slipped into a hidden room, the door panel sliding open halfway. The hall was silent and dark, and Jack found himself falling back into his thoughts as he waited for them to emerge with the stolen goods. 

All he had wanted was to come home to Jeannie. He could start his life over with her, take back all the terrible things he’d done…the things he’d _had_ to do…and everything would have been all right. But she...

He shook his head. No, he couldn’t think about that. The pain of betrayal had begun to fester like an infected wound, feeding off of the darkness that had begun to grow inside him. Every time he thought of it, it was stronger, more powerful. His feelings had grown even more complicated…he loved Jeannie, wanted to be with her forever. He hated her too, hated that she had given up on him so soon. And he hated the man who had made her smile, because that was supposed to be _him._

Most of all, he had lost his sense of purpose. Nothing mattered anymore, not when there was no one to share it with.

He heard approaching footsteps and straightened up, watching as the other three men appeared again, carrying boxes in their arms. He followed them back to the van they had arrived in and waited until they had loaded the weapons into the back before climbing in. 

They had almost reached the end of the parking lot and turned out onto the side road when sirens began to go off around them and guards stepped out of the shadows, aiming handguns at the van. Jack scowled as the driver swerved to the side and ducked just before a bullet exploded through the window, narrowly missing his head. He slid the door open and jumped out to the ground, half-running, half-stumbling in his escape, his hands coming up to shield his face as the gunfire increased. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, Jack watched as the van became pockmarked with bullet holes and the shadowy figures inside flopped against the bloodstained windows. Gritting his teeth, Jack turned and disappeared into the sparse foliage across the street, leaving the others behind. 

He ran until the sounds were muffled by the surrounding noise of the city chaos, then slumped against the side of a building, panting. The gun burned in his hand and he tossed it to the ground resentfully. Did they really think there wouldn’t be guards prepared to stop them? They were the most well-known crime organization in the city…it was stupid that they weren’t prepared for retaliation. 

Jack sighed, running a hand through his hair. _This is what you get when you try to work together. It failed last time, and look what just happened. You can't rely on anyone these days._

That was the problem with Gotham City. Everyone relied so heavily on their own plans, their own little groups and allies and schemes, and they failed. They thought they’d become advanced, thought they’d grown stronger and smarter, but who was the real loser? Was it even crime anymore, what they were doing? Or was it just a mass of ploys and deals and bribes that branched out across the city in an intricate spiderweb, across the banks and the police and the big companies until no one knew what was crime and what was law and order.

_This city really is crazy. It doesn’t know itself anymore._

_Maybe it’s time to rebuild._

He shook his head at the thought. That was none of his business. As if he was the one to decide how the city should operate. 

Then again, no one else seemed to be able to do it, either. 

Jack shrugged, kicking the gun under a pile of overflowing trash bags, and began walking down the street. So _that_ plan had fallen through, and he was stuck in the same place. No money, no reward, no power. 

Same old, same old.

He was getting sick of it.

_Maybe you need to take your life into your own hands for once. Make your own choices._

He sidestepped a gaggle of drunken teens and pulled his coat tighter over his shoulders. The memory of the shootout with the guards back at the Wayne Enterprises building was already beginning to fade, and the adrenaline rush that had come with the sound of gunfire had dissipated. It was as if it had all happened years ago, not minutes. Jack kept walking down the sidewalk, lost in thought, eyes fixed on the ground.

Although he didn’t want to admit it, he knew why he was doing all of this. It was a ruse, a plot of his own making to distract him from the reality hanging heavily over his shoulders like a bad omen. And no matter how hard he tried to focus on other things, it never went away.

Jeannie had broken her promise.

When he found himself standing in front of her apartment, gazing up at the door with burning eyes, it wasn’t an accident. 

He always knew he would end up back here. 

He wasn’t here to beg, wasn’t here to take her back. They were past that…he had seen in her eyes that she didn’t love him anymore, maybe never loved him in the first place. She had led him on, and, like a blindly trusting child, he had followed her. 

He comforted himself with the belief that maybe she’d _thought_ she loved him, once. Even if that wasn’t true now. But it didn’t matter, really. Because he wasn’t here to start over.

He was here to end it all.

It hadn’t been a plan, or something he’d thought about before now. But standing there on the sidewalk, watching the windows darken as the occupants went to bed, he knew what he was here for. He knew with more clarity than he ever would have had, even if he had planned everything out weeks before. 

Whatever he had once felt for her was gone. If it had been love, it was swallowed up in the darkness inside him, burned away. He had hated her for it at first, how she had snuffed out the last bit of light inside him that had been flickering on and off like a tiny flame for the past few months. Now there was nothing inside, just a gaping hole that made him feel empty and lost and cold. 

Cold enough to stop caring for good.

He started up the familiar steps, hands going into his pockets. He felt for the familiar items he had begun carrying with him out of habit. They were there: cards in one pocket, knife in the other. It was a switchblade this time, one he had been given as a show of good faith by one of the mob’s men. He walked inside quietly, past the front desk and up to the hallway, where he paused outside the apartment door, listening to the murmur of voices inside. He couldn’t distinguish any words, but he caught the sound of a soft laugh punctuating the conversation and clenched his teeth. 

_He_ deserved to be the one to make her smile.

After all, he knew all about that, didn’t he?

_You’re the one who’s always smiling._

He tried the door, and it was unlocked. Pushing it open and stepping inside, Jack nodded at the two figures on the couch. Jeannie sprang to her feet with a hollow gasp, her cheeks losing their color just as they had when she'd first seen him again. Mike stood up behind her, staring at Jack in annoyance.

“What are you doing here again? If you don’t quit it, I'll call the cops on you.” 

“Oh, call them. They won’t come.” Jack said calmly. The knife in his pocket felt smooth and welcoming against his fingers. “They’ve got better things to worry about. Haven’t you heard the crime reports lately?” He wandered over to the narrow mantle above the tiny fireplace and picked up a snow globe. Inside was a replica of Gotham’s skyline. 

“What do you want?” Mike sounded subdued now, as if sensing the danger in Jack’s demeanor. The latter flashed him a quick smile, which was so humorless it looked more like a grimace. Jeannie glanced between the two nervously as Jack tossed the snow globe into the air and caught it deftly, watching the white flecks inside settle against the bottom.

“I’ve given it some thought, and I’ve decided I’m not mad.” He let his eyes linger on Jeannie, who was staring at him like he was some type of predator and she was the prey. Maybe once he would have felt badly about that. “Not mad at you. I do sort of wish I’d just died in prison, would’ve saved me the trip back over here, though.”

“Jack, I tried to contact you. After you showed up, I…”

“No, you didn’t.” he interrupted, turning the snow globe upside down. “You hoped you would never see me again. Because you were happy. I mean, he _did_ make you laugh.” His fingers fluttered at Mike in an absent gesture. “Can’t blame you.”

“Look, you get out right now.” Mike finally stepped forward, gripping the back of the couch tightly. “I can…”

“What? What exactly are you going to take away from me?” Jack spread his arms wide, his expression mocking. “I don’t have anything to take.”

“I can have you arrested.”

“I guess you could. Doesn’t matter to me, though.”

“You’ll go to prison.”

“I’ve been to prison. Can’t get much worse than that.” He barked out a harsh laugh. Mike’s mouth twitched in fear. 

“I can hurt you.”

Jack gave him a long stare. “You can try.”

The silence was tense and drawn out as the three stared at each other. Jeannie finally stepped closer to Jack, who tossed her a withering look.

“Jack, I don’t know what you’ve been through, but…”

“You remember when I gave this to you?” He was looking at the snow globe, the one he had given her two years ago for Christmas. “You said it was your favorite present ever. Know where I got it?”

She shook her head slowly, watching him. “No.”

“I found it outside next to a dumpster. Probably some souvenir junk a tourist threw away. I don’t know how it wasn’t broken.” He smiled again, wryly. “I actually believed you liked it.”

“I _did,_ Jack. Please, just let me explain…”

“I don’t think there’s anything to explain. I didn’t come here to beg you to take me back. I’m not an idealist.”

“Then what…” She paused to steady her voice. “What are you here for?”

  
Jack let the snow globe roll out of his hand, watching as it smashed to pieces on the floor. The glass skittered out around them, coating the ground in glittering shards. 

_Familiar._

“Do you know,” he asked to no one in particular as he walked around Jeannie toward Mike, the glass crunching under his shoes, “how my mother died?”

He heard her draw a sharp breath behind him. “How?”

“My dad broke a bottle. Or maybe he used a knife. I don’t know, everything’s a little fuzzy up here.” He pointed to his head. “Doesn’t really matter. He killed her with it. Told me never to tell anyone.”

“So why are you telling us?” Mike asked carefully, backing away. Jack matched his pacing, running his tongue over the scars on his mouth. 

“I don’t know. Thought you’d like to hear it.”

“Look, buddy, I'm giving you ten seconds to get out before I—" Mike's words cut off with a gasp as, in one fluid motion, Jack whipped the knife out of his pocket and clicked it open, plunging it into the other man’s diaphragm. Mike staggered backward, his eyes blown wide and shocked, and clawed desperately at the air. Jack reached out to drag him closer, twisting his hand in the fabric of his shirt. 

“Well then, let the countdown begin.” he murmured, his mouth turning up at the corners. He dropped the gasping figure, yanking the knife back out. Mike’s body fell to the floor with a limp thud, and stayed there, unmoving. Jack stepped over it and began cleaning the knife off on the back of the couch. Eventually he looked up at Jeannie, who was staring at the body on the ground, petrified. Jack sighed.

“If you’re worried about the carpet, I’ll have someone come clean it up.”

“You…” she whispered, her words breaking off into a choking sound. Jack tilted his head, rounding the corner of the couch quietly. 

“This is just part of an ongoing process, you see. A sort of purging of everything I remember. It’s a lot easier to restart life when you’re a blank slate. None of those troubling details of your past coming back to trip you up. So it’s nothing personal, okay?”

She backed away, up against the wall, as Jack came closer. “No, please…Jack, please, leave me alone!”

He craned his neck to the side, the joints popping. “I killed people for you. I shot my best friend in the head so I could come home to you. The man who saved my life, he’s probably rotting away in his empty house right now after I stabbed him so he wouldn’t go reporting me to the military. All because I wanted you.” Jack caught her eyes in a steady, unforgiving gaze. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

“Okay, we can make that happen. I promise. We…”

“No, no, no. No more promises. I told you, I’m moving on.”

She was trembling now. “Jack…”

“ _Don’t!_ ” he snapped at her, his voice raising. She flinched. “He’s gone.”

“Who’s gone? Jack, I don’t…”

“You don’t have to understand. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. You’re not a part of me anymore."

“We can…”

“You know what I wanted?” He examined the knife for any blood spots, and looked back up when he was satisfied it was clean. “It’s actually pretty simple. Not all that much to ask for.”

“What do you want? I can help you, Jack. I can get it for you. I’ll do what you want me to do, okay? Just…please. Please don’t kill me.”

Jack ran a finger along the corner of the blade, unflinching even as the edge nicked his finger. “I just wanted to be the one to make you smile.” They fell silent, staring at each other. The clock on the mantle ticked loudly and Jack reached up to pull it from its perch, not bothering to watch as it smashed to the ground by their feet along with the broken snow globe. He gave her a half-grin. “Time’s up.”

“You’re joking.” Her words were breathless and edged with tears. Jack watched those tears well in her large eyes, brimming over and spilling onto her cheeks. He heard their hearts beating in unison, hers pattering double the speed of his, yet in perfect timing with one another. He brushed the side of her face with the back of his hand before setting the knife against the corner of her mouth. Jeannie stiffened, staring at him in frozen horror. Jack leaned closer.

“No.” The blade flashed up, and he clamped a hand over her mouth before a scream could escape. He felt blood seep between his fingers, warm and oddly comforting. She struggled in his grip, scratching at his hands and trying to escape. Jack ignored it. “No, it’s not a joke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think! thanks for reading :)


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four

_You’ve become everything you were ever scared of._

_Everything that destroyed you._

Jack leaned against the outside wall of the warehouse, watching as the turbulent waves leapt at the corners of the docks, deep in thought. A heavy fog was descending from over the water, and he appreciated how it engulfed him in the darkness. He didn’t have to worry about anyone finding him. Not like they would know he had done it…he was, to everyone’s knowledge, dead, or missing without hope of being found. It wasn’t as if someone would find the bodies in the apartment and immediately think of him. In fact, with as low a profile he had kept before leaving to join the army, he wasn’t sure he really knew _anybody_ in the city, aside from the few mob members he’d had dealings with. 

_But then, you always did know you’d end up alone._

Jack stared out across the water, ignoring how cold the wind had gotten. Without even thinking, he pulled the cards from his pocket and rifled through them, smiling like they were old friends. The joker card sat on the top and Jack flipped it around to face him, tracing the faded bloodstains that marred the surface.

“Guess it’s just you and me, now.” he muttered, before realizing he was talking to a playing card. _Someone’s going to think you’re crazy,_ he reprimanded himself before shaking his head. So what? It wasn’t as if he was trying to maintain a perfect profile in Gotham City. Any hope of _that_ was long gone, along with his ambitions. 

And that left him with the question, what was he going to do now? 

Well, that was something to ask another day. He had to think things over, get used to this new way of life, no longer trying to find a way to get home to Jeannie or make her take him back.

He’d left that behind when he’d carved that bloody smile into her face and left the dead bodies sprawled out on the floor among the shards of glass and inner workings of the broken clock. And Jack had waited with veiled dread for the guilt to set in, for the sudden, sweeping realization that he had brutally murdered the woman he loved. He’d waited for it to come when he least expected it, maybe in tears or numb denial or voiceless apologies, but it never came. 

He wasn’t sorry, and he wasn’t angry. 

He wasn’t _anything._

And it was oddly freeing to know that.

_What are you going to do now?_

_  
_ Every bone in his body ached to have a purpose. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life drifting through time, standing on the outskirts of the city watching everything pass by. He wasn’t _meant_ for that. He needed more, needed something to spark the light of ambition inside him that had gone out. The energy welling up inside him needed an outlet. He needed someone to fill that gap inside him that he had dug when he’d left everything he cared for behind.

Something to complete him.

But first, he needed to decide who he really was. Right now he was a blank slate, cleared of any trace of his past, all ties and bonds severed to who he was before. Even his own name rang hollow and foreign to him now, like the ghost of someone he once knew. He didn’t feel like that person anymore…whatever he had been, he was gone now, broken apart by the things he himself had done. Murder, betrayal, rage…

Everything he had been through, everything he had done, it had all come to this. It wasn’t his destruction…that was too cold of a word. And it didn't fit. He didn’t feel broken anymore, only _different._

It was just a reconstruction.

And that was the most liberating part. Jack Napier would never have dreamed he could really achieve anything greater than the most mediocre of lives, despite his starry-eyed ambitions and hopes. He’d always known who he was, and that person would never be great. It was just the way of the world.

But if Jack Napier was gone…

Well, then he could do _anything._

His eyes sparked as he began to realize the truth. He could _make_ himself into whatever he wanted…there were no rules about it, nothing to follow because he no longer existed. 

He thought about the raid at Wayne Enterprises, the mob’s pitiful attempts to scrape up the semblance of a plan to take down the biggest corporation in the city. He'd heard they were taking shots at the new district attorney too, but nothing had come of that. That was what they didn't understand...their plans were traps, corralling them into the prison of rules and orders and schemes. A prison of their own making. They could try as hard as they wanted, but nothing would come of it. 

After all, look where _he_ had ended up after following the rules.

His mind’s eye flashed back to the look on Jeannie’s face as he’d held the knife to her, the way he hadn’t felt anything at _all,_ even after having cared for her for so long. He wondered, almost absently, if he had lost his mind a little somewhere along the way. He knew he wasn’t the same as he used to be…the Jack he once was would have given up everything before he even hurt an innocent person, but now it didn’t seem to matter. And he didn’t feel badly about it. 

Did that mean he was crazy?

If it did, then maybe insanity wasn’t so bad as everyone made it out to be. He didn’t feel delusional, or afraid. He just felt free. A faint laugh escaped his lips.

_Leave it to madness to open your eyes._

Whatever it was, it had helped him realize the one thing that really mattered. And that was…well, _nothing_ mattered.

Maybe that was the trouble. His mind traveled back to the botched Wayne Enterprises theft. Maybe they’d thought things out too far. They’d tried to control things, and assumed everything would go according to plan. They had to realize that they _couldn’t_ control it, couldn’t control anything. Jack knew that better than anyone…he hadn’t _wanted_ to be taken to some underground prison, hadn’t wanted to be forced into killing his friends, hadn’t wanted to watch people die in front of him. It had been out of his control, and it had shaped him into something different after it all. He’d _tried_ to control it, of course, come up with elaborate schemes and excuses and plans, but what had it amounted to? Here he was, back in Gotham City, worse for the wear and missing an identity. He had blood on his hands and no one to turn to.

_That_ was what control led to. But if he could show them how much better everything would be if they just stopped trying…well, that could lead to some very interesting changes to this city. If people could just realize that, after all their struggling, all their hard work and planning and organizing, that it was all for nothing, that it would never matter, then maybe they would learn that they could do anything they wanted. Because if there was no point to it all, then who cared about the rules? Who cared what anyone would think if everything was chaos? And in the end, wasn't that the fairest option? If everyone was caught up in the chaos, there would be no one to make the rules. No one to give the orders. _That_ was fairness. 

_And anyway, what have you got to lose?_

If it was true and he really was going insane, he didn’t want to do it alone. Besides, the construct of sanity…wasn’t it just like all the other plans and schemes to keep people in their place? What would they do if they didn’t need to think that anymore? Because after all, could anyone really be insane? 

_Insane…or enlightened?_

Jack’s mouth quirked up at the corners as he continued to stare down at the card in his hand, his head feeling clear for the first time since he could remember. _And this city is no stranger to breaking the rules. Not when they idolize a vigilante in a Halloween costume._ The Batman had become a constant thought in the back of his mind, his fascination growing daily whenever the crime fighter was mentioned in the paper or when he heard a report on the radio in one of the local bars. _Kind of ironic. The only way he can stop crime is to break the rules. We really are the same. Except he believes this city can be saved._

Jack knew better than that. He had no expectations for Gotham to fix itself. It was going to collapse in on itself eventually…it was just a matter of how it was done. And _that_ was a question that could be answered very easily. 

He had no obligation to the city. There was nothing here for him anymore. It had only ever brought him pain and rage and fear. 

_Maybe it’s time to pay them back._

He didn’t care what happened to Gotham. If it rotted away over the course of a thousand years or burned to the ground in a day, it didn’t matter. There was no love lost, and no resentment. Jack tried to think of the right word for the city, gazing out over the river as the lights on the bridges flickered on and off in the darkness.

It wasn't home anymore. It hadn't been for a long time, he'd just refused to accept that. And it wasn't a place for revenge...that was petty and useless and wouldn't matter in the end. No, it was something else…a stage set, waiting for a story to unfold. He could watch the chaos descend and show everyone that nothing really mattered, even after all their effort and struggling. Any good man could turn evil, any city's foundations could be shaken, if there was only someone to do it. 

_And who better to show them than you?_

He had nothing to lose, nothing to gain…

_Make this city your playground._

But a playground wasn’t any fun without someone to share it with…Jack didn’t want it to be like that. He had always faced adversity…conflict was as much a part of him as the deck of cards in his hand or the scars stretching across his face. He wasn’t complete without it.

He smiled suddenly, his eyes lighting up with inspiration. A hoarse chuckle slid from between his lips as he realized the solution that had been right in front of him the whole time.

He _wants to save the city. Wants to repair the damage and purge it of crime. He believes in chaos, but he doesn’t want it to be the end. He’s delusional, but at least he knows what he’s doing._

_You wanted an adversary, didn’t you? Because it’s no fun when there’s no one to stop you. He would be perfect for the job. The ideal candidate. A…dancing partner, so to speak._

Jack’s grin widened and he shivered in happiness, drawing his shoulders up. Everything was falling into place, without the slightest effort on his part. It was just happening, and he was watching, like a bystander witnessing some insane spectacle he had no role in. For the first time in his life, he felt complete. Whatever piece of himself that had been missing was replaced, and that hollow ache inside him was gone completely. This was a new chapter, a new _life,_ and he intended to make the most of it.

_Are you ready to dance, Batman?_

His grating laughter grew stronger and he doubled over, still holding the deck of cards. It wasn’t just funny, it was _exciting…_ finally, after years of denial, years of mistakes and trying to get back up again after being pushed down so many times he’d forgotten how, he realized who he could be. And hadn’t he said that from the beginning? He’d always been so sure he would be remembered in one way or another, but he’d never even thought it could be this way. 

_The waiting is over._ _It’s time for the main event._

Jack stared down at the grinning figure on the card, inspiration creeping into the back of his mind.

For that, he needed to look the part.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five

Working for the mob meant abiding by their laughably strict rules, but at least it paid well. 

Jack glanced around at the bare walls of the tiny apartment, impressed. After assisting in one bank heist (a raid on one of the few remaining banks that didn’t belong to the crime families) he’d been paid enough not only to afford a place for himself, but one that didn’t look like it was carved out of a hole in the wall. Which was fortunate, since he wasn’t planning on working for the mob again after this…the city deserved better than that. At least if they were going to be broken down, it could be done by someone who wasn’t already in charge.

_Shuffle the deck a little bit, right?_

He stepped into the equally small bathroom, surveying his reflection in the mirror. The scars had fully healed, but they still ran in heavy ridges up his face toward his cheekbones. A permanent smile, courtesy of whoever he remembered inflicting it on him that particular day. Not that _that_ mattered anymore.

His hands grazed across the surface of the cracked faux-porcelain sink, his eyes never leaving the face in the mirror. During the past week, he had made some calls to a few of the former mob hitmen and smugglers, ones who had grown disenchanted with the life and had called it quits. Jack had convinced a few of them to talk over the phone, explaining his first course of action to kickstart Gotham’s ruin. Of course, he hadn’t said it like _that,_ only asked if they would be willing to join him in a heist at one of the mob-owned banks. There was nothing like a little internal conflict to encourage chaos. Six of them had agreed, and Jack had thanked them, saying he’d call later on with details.

He also mentioned to each one that they would have to kill one of the others, although none of them knew he told anyone else. They’d agreed on that too. It made for more shares all around, and they didn’t know they wouldn’t be around to enjoy it.

The only problem was that no one knew who he was, and a hit on a mob bank would only attract enough attention if someone knew it was him.

Before he could consider that problem further, the phone rang in the other room. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Jack turned and went to answer it.

“What?”

The voice on the other end was tinny, but he recognized it as one of the men he had called about the heist. He sounded impatient and on edge. “Look, man, when are you going to let us in on what’s really happening? You said you talked to the other guys last week and called me then, but you haven’t said anything else. When are we gonna know what’s really going on?”

Jack sighed, leaning his forehead against the grimy window and staring down at the choked streets below. “I already told you what’s going on. We’re hitting a mob bank.”

“Yeah, but why? Isn’t that crazy dangerous? I mean, there’s plenty of other banks the mob isn’t running right now. Why don’t we hit one of those? Less chance we’ll all be shot and murdered five seconds into the job.”

Jack, knowing that was exactly what was going to happen, stifled a laugh. “Yeah, it’s dangerous. If you want out, just say so.”

“No, I’m in.” the man amended hurriedly. The shares Jack had promised were too good to pass up, and he knew it. “I was just wondering why…”

“You don’t need to know why.” Jack cut him off. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, anyway. It’s up to you if you want to do this job, and I’m not making you say yes.”

“I know, but…”

“Then I don’t think you have any questions for me.”

“It’s just…” There was a pause on the other line, and Jack wondered if the man had hung up. “Look, are you playing with me? This isn’t a setup or something, is it?”

“No, it’s not. I wish you’d asked that a little earlier.” He ran a finger down the window glass, clearing the dust away. “It doesn’t reflect well on your professional character to not make sure you’re not speaking to a cop or something.”

“You’re not a cop, are you?” The man sounded much more nervous now. Jack chuckled.

“No. Nothing like that. And don’t worry about the heist. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, you just have to be patient.” _What you don’t get is that this whole deal will be pointless unless they know who we…who_ I… _am. It’ll be swept under the rug. But if they knew it was me, and they knew what I could do to them…well, that might be exactly the type of publicity I'm going to need._

_It’s got to be something they’ll remember. No one will care if Jack Napier stole from a mob bank. That’ll be yesterday’s news an hour after it hits the press. It has to be memorable. It has to stick out._

_They have to know who you are._

_And after all, Jack Napier doesn’t exist anymore. Not really. You can be anyone._

_Anything._

_Anything at all._

“You said that last time.” The man’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Be patient. I’m a little fed up with being patient, buddy. I don’t want to be left in the dark, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the other guys for this job feel the same way. Have you even done this sort of thing before?”

Jack wasn’t really listening. His apartment building faced the Gotham Opera House, and a crew was unrolling a giant banner alongside the main doors. He was watching them struggle to gain control of the banner as it swayed in the wind, and trying to figure out how he could get the attention he needed for the mob to notice the heist. The man was still talking.

“I mean, I’ve done a lot of this stuff in my lifetime, let me tell you, and the guys in charge, they at least give us a game plan or an idea of what’s going to happen. You’ve only told us the name of the bank and the shares we’ll get. If…”

The banner unfurled down alongside the edge of the building, and Jack read the black scrolled lettering running across the top before his eyes traveled down to the picture below. “Did you know _Pagliacci_ is opening next week?”

The man paused. “What are you talking about?”

Jack gazed at the picture on the banner, a melancholy-looking clown with straggles of green hair hanging over his face. His mouth, painted a garish red, was turned down at the corners, and his dark eyes looked up out of a face streaked with white. “I’ve never seen it, but the Gotham Gazette says it’s _a truly unforgettable spectacle._ At least, that’s what they say on the sign.”

“Are you crazy, man? Or are you messing with me? Because if that’s what this is, it’s not funny. If you think this is a game, or some sort of _joke..."_

"Yes." Jack interrupted, still staring at the sign out the window. _Perfect. It’s perfect._ “That’s exactly what it is.”

“What are you…”

“Thank you.” Jack hung up the phone, resting his forearms against the window as a smile grew across his face, the scars stretching along his cheeks. “You’ve given me an idea.”

 

\+ + + + + + + 

 

He wasn’t Jack Napier anymore. 

That was the only thought that passed through his head as he stood in front of the mirror, running his hand through the deep green locks that framed his face, falling almost to his shoulders. Contemplatively unscrewing the lid to a tube of white greasepaint, he surveyed his reflection with an impassive expression. 

_He's gone._

Just like the memories that had dissolved into an indecipherable mess, he was slowly losing himself, piece by piece. 

But was that really a bad thing?

_It’s not like_ that _version of you mattered in the first place. No one will miss him when he’s gone._

The greasepaint felt cold and stifling on his skin. Amid the remains of the few blurry memories he still had, one picture shot through Jack’s mind, crystal clear and real enough for him to wonder for a split second if he was really there. Soldiers lined up alongside a truck as a shield as the fighting raged around them, the sweat on their faces mixing with the dirt and blood that clouded the air, like a badly applied disguise. He remembered thinking it had almost been funny, although he had never been sure why. He still wasn’t sure, but that wasn’t going to stop him from laughing.

Not anymore.

He dragged his fingertips down his face slowly, watching the streaks of white mask his features as his mind turned to his self-proclaimed adversary. _Wonder what you'll think of_ this _, Batman. Now Gotham's complete, isn't it? You can't have a vigilante running around with no one to catch. And whoever you are, you don't want to spend the rest of your life picking off muggers and petty thieves. You should thank me. I'm giving you a purpose. Just like you've given me._

_We’re two sides of the same coin._

He didn’t bother to clean off the white paint from his hands as he opened the black tube beside him. _What do they see in you, Batman? What made them accept you? You’re an outlaw, a criminal, really. And they call you a hero._

_How desperate do they have to be to call you a hero?_

His mouth tilted up at the corners into a tiny smile.

_What a city this is._

_Pagliacci_ had been unexpectedly cancelled and the sign taken down, but not before Jack had noticed the rings of black around his eyes. He looked at his own face, admiring those same rings he’d created with the paint, and his smile grew wider.

_What a crazy city. A fairground of freaks who don't know how to_ not _hurt each other. Falling over one another in a mad scramble to get to the top, pushing each other down, showing everyone what chaos really means._

_And I’m coming for you._

It was a war, he realized as he applied slashes of red along the scars and his lips, the muscles in his face twitching as he tilted his head from side to side, staring at his reflection. It had always been a war.

_Because isn’t that what a war is? Fighting for a chance, fighting for the power and the money and the strength to be on top. And once they get there, they realize just how easily they can lose it all. So they fight to defend it, even after they’ve won. It’s a war, and he and I,_ he glanced over his shoulder out the window into the darkness outside, his eyes searching eagerly for a glimpse of a caped shadow on the neighboring rooftops, _he and I, we’re fighting on different sides. He wants peace, I want to show them the truth._

He turned back to the mirror, applying the final touches of color to his face. 

_And for a war, you need war paint._

Jack stepped back to take in the figure reflected in the mirror, his arms crossed over his chest. He didn't see even a glimpse of his former self anymore, not that it came as a surprise. He had killed him, slowly but surely, with every gunshot, every knife that stopped another heart, every inch of darkness that had crept through him so naturally that he hadn't noticed it in the first place. 

And he was happy about that.

He didn't want to be Jack Napier anymore.

He was more than that...he was a _symbol._ A symbol of what this city had become…what the people had become. And what they could be, if they just realized it. He could show them that, if they just embraced the chaos of it all, they could do whatever they wanted. They could burn the city to the ground, and he could stand and watch it crumble into ashes, watch the Batman fight to save its struggling soul, watch the people realize how meaningless it all was.

They couldn’t blame him, because they’d be the ones doing it all. They’d destroy themselves. He was just there to give them a…kickstart, so to speak. A little push off the edge to show them what they had to do to keep from plummeting.

_You just have to show them how to do it._

_He_ wasn’t the chaos…they would create that themselves. Imploding like a collapsed circus tent. He was only the ringmaster.

Telling them how to do it all. Orchestrating the final outcome. 

He wasn’t the chaos itself.

Just…an agent of it all.

Jack turned away from the mirror and stepped out into the living room. A long, flat box sat on the kitchen table, and he lifted the lid off before unfolding the dark purple trench coat inside. He smoothed out the creases, smiling to himself as he laid it flat on the table. Funny how the mob, the very people he was going to destroy, had paid for this themselves with the remainder of his share from the job he’d done for them.

If only they knew. 

Shrugging the coat over his shoulders, Jack crossed the room to stare out the window. The city nightlife was in full swing down on the streets, but the rooftops were dark and abandoned. He remembered how he used to love sitting on the rooftop of his old apartment building with Jeannie as they watched the sun set. 

_How the times have changed._

He hadn’t been on the roof of this apartment building, and was suddenly seized by the overwhelming desire to do exactly that. To get a better look at the city below. Gathering the coat around him and ducking his head to avoid anyone looking at him (it was almost midnight, but there was no telling who he would meet) he opened the door to his apartment and stepped out into the hallway.

The roof was cold and dark, the chimney stacks looming up like pillars in an ancient, abandoned city. Jack stood on the edge, staring down at the people below him. Something moving caught the corner of his eye and he whipped his head around to glimpse a black shape disappearing off the corner of a rooftop on another block. 

_There you are._

He was so high up that the noise from below drifted on the wind like an almost silent whisper. It was strange, like a moment of peace. The calm before the storm. 

_And what a storm it’s gonna be._

Jack’s eyes glittered at the thought, and a laugh slipped from between his lips. This was the beginning of something that no one would ever forget. He would be a part of this city. Just as much as the cracked stone streets or stained brick walls or the graffiti that glared up from the alleyways and train stations. Just as much as the underhanded schemes and deals and coercions and organizations run by the mob bosses. And just as much as the giant bat that stood over the city like some sort of vigilante ghoul, waiting to swoop down on its prey and drag them back to the police station.

He would be a part of it all. But he wouldn’t be like them. He wasn’t going to be predictable and forgettable. He wasn’t going to be what they were expecting of him.

He’d had enough of doing that.

_You’re going to be their wildcard._


	27. Chapter Twenty-Six

After being bombarded with increasingly impatient calls from the six men he’d recruited for his heist idea, Jack had finally decided to gather them all so he could explain his course of action. He had hoped that a meeting wouldn’t be necessary, since he had personally instructed each of them to kill each other once the heist was underway, but if this was the only way he could keep them from disbanding, then it was fine. He was adaptable, anyway.

He’d told them to meet him at one of the abandoned warehouses down by the docks that night, and they’d all agreed. Jack waited for them all to arrive before he did, wanting to scope out the situation and be sure they weren’t planning on ganging up on him. He was confident that he could hold them off on his own if it came to that, but the odds were still six against one. Even if he wasn’t Jack Napier anymore, he was still human. He wasn’t delusional. He knew he _could_ be beaten. 

But he also knew, with equal certainty, that he wouldn’t be.

There was a tarnished slab of copper-like metal sitting alongside the door of the warehouse, and Jack paused to catch a glimpse of himself in the warped, clouded reflection. He didn’t even recognize himself, and he was glad for that. The black greasepaint rimming his eyes made it look like they were set deep into his head, like a skull, and the white of the rest of his face looked like a nightmare version of the clown he’d seen on the _Pagliacci_ poster a few days before. The red accentuating his mouth made it indistinguishable from the scars that widened it, and he tossed back the tangled green strands of his hair that fell over his face before pulling the custom purple coat tighter over his shoulders and striding inside the warehouse. His pockets were empty aside from the ever-present deck of cards and two switchblades, one on either side, but he didn’t need anything else. 

He saw the six men sitting around a wooden table, their faces lit by a dim oil lamp sitting in the middle. They were talking, but when they heard him enter, they looked up and fell silent. Jack watched the fear flash across their faces, and the uncertainty, as if they were wondering if _they_ were the ones walking into a trap. Jack smiled at them, his footsteps soundless as he came closer, then sat down at the one empty chair at the table. He watched as the two men on either side of him tried to inconspicuously move their own chairs further away from him, and flinch as the metal chair legs screeched across the rough concrete floor.

“Evening, gentlemen.” His voice was soft, without even a hint of menace, but their suspicious stares didn’t fade. Jack leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and fixing them each in turn with a long stare. “Well, here we are. What do you want?”

The man across from him, looming at well over six feet and sporting a tattoo that ran across the entire right side of his face, finally found his voice. “You’re the one who called us here.” Jack recognized his voice as the man who had first called him with misgivings. He smiled at him calmly.

“Because none of you had the patience to wait until I gave you further orders. You’re the reason for this little clambake. So ask your questions.” He lifted his hand, fluttering his fingers at them. “Go. What do you want to know?”

“A mob bank.” The man who had spoken first leaned forward as well, glaring at Jack. “Why a mob bank? Do you have a death wish or something?”

“I don’t have a death wish. I have an _idea_. And this heist is the first step.”

“Right, but…”

“Enough of that.” Another man broke in. He was older than Jack, maybe forty-five, and his weatherbeaten face spoke for the amount of work in this area he had seen. “Let’s start asking the real questions. Like your name, for one.”

Jack glance at him. “Does that affect your ability to do this job?”

“Well, no, but—"

“Good. Anyway,” He turned his gaze back to the first man. “to answer your question, it’s very important we target a mob bank. Not to spoil the surprise, but I am going to dismantle the mob.”

The men around the table all began talking at once, their voices fighting to be the loudest as they each explained why that was a terrible idea. Jack watched them quietly, waiting until some of the noise died down before speaking again. “Why does that matter to you?”

“You’re talking about the _mob,_ man.” one of the other men said, slamming his fist onto the table for emphasis. Jack raised an eyebrow at him. “They control this city, don’t you realize that? You're gonna get us all killed if you make us work with you."

"See, but here's the thing." Jack replied, his demeanor never changing. "I'm not asking you to work with me. I don’t have any need for you. Once you finish the heist and take your shares, then you’re free to go.” He watched the men exchange wary glances at one another. He didn’t blame them for that. After all, he _had_ told each one that they would be killing one of the others after the job was finished. Doubtless, the realization that maybe they had _all_ been instructed to do the same thing had entered their heads.

The first man stood up slowly, his stare revolving around the table, coming to rest on each individual member of the group. “Free to go, you say?” he asked, and Jack saw him beginning to work out the truth in his head. _Surprised it took them that long. Maybe these aren’t the guys for the job._ “How free are we talking?”

“That’s up to you.” Jack tilted his head, cracking the joints in his neck. “All I’m asking for is the heist.”

“I’m willing to bet,” the man said slowly, his expression growing dark, “that none of us are walking away with our shares.”

Jack raised on eyebrow as his hand went to his pocket and wrapped around the switchblade. “Really?” 

The tension in the room continued to build as one of the men next to Jack stood up, the one on his other side following suit after a moment’s hesitation. The tattooed man scowled. “You told me to kill the other guy I’d have with me once we overrode the security system.” Now the others were staring around uneasily. “I’d bet that you were going to have someone put a bullet in my brain too by the time this job was over.”

There was a chorus of agreement through the room, and Jack felt the stares on him. He gripped a switchblade in each hand, still hidden by his pockets. 

“So you could walk away with the shares for yourself, is that it?” One of the men next to him glared, his voice grating. Jack gave a careless shrug. “You come in here dressed like some demented _clown_ and you _admit_ you were gonna have us all kill each other? What are you, crazy? You are, you’re insane, and you want us to go along with this plan of y—” he was cut off as a switchblade plunged into his stomach, and he staggered back with a strangled gasp. Jack stood up, retrieving the bloodstained knife and standing over the weakly flailing body below him. He looked up at the shocked faces around him and ran the edge of the blade along his finger, watching the blood well up from where it had created a shallow cut along the skin. 

“It’s not a plan.” His dark eyes flashed and his smiled had disappeared. He stared at the remaining men, ignoring the final choking breaths of the unfortunate victim on the ground. “Gotham City is on the brink of insanity itself. It’s going to fall, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. I’m just trying to speed up the inevitable, and I’ll do it in whatever way _I_ want at that particular moment.” His expression changed, became less threatening, although he gestured with the knife at the other men who were watching him with shocked stares. “Make sense?”

The tattooed man was the first to break the silence. “I’m out.” He got up, his eyes fixed on Jack in a combination of uncertainty and disgust. “I’m not takin’ orders from a clown.” Jack shrugged, smiling again, and the man’s frown deepened. “Got it? I’m not taking orders from you!”  
“Okay.” Jack cleaned the switchblade off on the sleeve of his coat. The man rounded the corner of the table and stepped closer. 

“ _Okay_? That’s all you’re gonna say? You brought us here, admitted you were gonna have us all kill each other once you were done with us, and you’re just gonna stand there smiling about it?” He was mere inches away now, towering over Jack with a stormy expression on his face. Jack looked at him, unperturbed.

“Do you want me to say something else?”

The man punched him in the face and Jack staggered back, his eyes closing at the impact of the blow. He giggled, high and delirious, before he could help himself, then straightened up, rolling his shoulders back. 

“Do it again.”

The man stared at him in disbelief, then his lip curled up in a snarl and he ran at Jack, hitting him again right below his eye. Jack felt the pain explode through his nerves and jar his cheekbone, and he laughed again. There was something supremely funny about the man threatening him like this…as if brute force would make a difference to him. _Scare_ or intimidate him.

It would have, once. But not anymore.

The man glared at Jack as he stood up straight, ignoring the blood running from a split lip onto the collar of his shirt. “You’re crazy.”

“We’ll see.” Jack smiled before the man ran at him again. This time he stopped as the switchblade flashed again, narrowly missing impaling him in the stomach like the now-dead body on the floor. The man jumped back, letting out a quick breath.

“Nice try, buddy. But you’re not killing me. No matter what you told these other guys.” He gestured at the others behind him with one arm. “You can either run away or stick around and let me smash your face in.”

Jack tossed the switchblade into the air, his eyes gleaming. “I’ve done enough running away.” The man charged at him and Jack easily sidestepped him, watching as he stumbled and swerved around, his face twisted in a grimace of anger. “I guess I’ll need to find some new guys for the job once I’m finished with you.”

He heard the others coming up behind him and the familiar click of another switchblade opening. Spinning around, his fingers closed around the wrist of a raised arm clutching a knife, twisting it backward until the man cried out in pain and dropped the blade, turning and running. Jack picked it up and slid it into his pocket, turning to face one of the other men who was running straight toward him. Using his own knife, Jack let the edge graze along the attacker’s arm, and he leapt back with a yelp, clutching the gash. 

The other two still stood behind the table, staring at him uncomfortably, and Jack heard the thundering footsteps of the tattooed man behind him. He spun around, knife at the ready, and was met with a blindingly strong full-body slam. He fell back, hitting the ground hard, and the man was on him, getting in every possible blow he could. Instead of fighting back, Jack laughed, not because it was funny (although it _was_ ) but because there wasn’t anything else to do. 

Through a blurry haze, Jack heard a thud on the roof of the warehouse and one of the two men behind the table looked up, his eyes going wide. “The Bat!” 

The tattooed man stopped his attack and clambered to his feet, his own face ashen. "Where?"

The other man pointed shakily to the ceiling, where they could all hear footsteps running across the roof. The three men exchanged glances, then turned and ran without another word. Jack sat up slowly, his head spinning, watching them disappear out of the door of the warehouse. The only sound in the large, empty room was the guttering of the oil lamp on the table.

_The Bat._

Gingerly standing up and ignoring the ache that spread through his entire body, Jack made his way to the door, staring up at the sky, hoping for a glimpse of the vigilante. He saw nothing.

_Where are you?_

He sighed, leaning against the doorway with crossed arms. _Well, that didn’t go very well._ One man dead, two had run off, and the others thought he was just some freak escaped from Arkham or something. 

_Doesn’t matter. I can do it again. As many times as I need. I’ll get the right guys, and we’ll have the heist. And then they’ll realize who they’re dealing with. Everyone will realize._

_Including you, Batman._

He heard the rustle of wings on a nearby roof and looked up. He saw the shadowy figure standing on the edge, silhouetted in the moonlight. Straightening up, Jack walked toward it, his head tilted up to keep his eyes trained on the elusive creature. 

_You’re the one they’re all scared of._

_And that’s why this city loves you._

_You do what no one else can do. You control crime in this city. You keep it from falling off the edge. But that’s for now. Soon enough, they’ll stop loving you. And you’ll go down with them._

_It’s only a matter of time, Batman. But it’s not too late for you. Not too late to get a little bit of time for us. You and me. You don’t know it yet, but we’re bound together. They’ll remember us long after we’re gone._

_We will be the legacy of this city, after it’s become nothing more than ashes._

Every muscle in his body burned with pain from the beating he’d just taken, and he tasted blood in his mouth, but Jack ignored it. He was too enthralled with the sight of the caped vigilante to even think about it.

_Who are you?_

_Under the cape and the mask and the armor, who are you?_

He remembered how he’d felt, looking in the mirror as greasepaint shrouded his face, remembered how he wasn’t himself anymore, how he didn’t feel like himself, how he’d felt _nothing._

_Are you really anyone?_

The figure on the roof spread its wings and leapt off. Jack broke into a run, not sure where he was chasing it to, but reluctant to lose his glimpse of the Batman. He found himself in an alley, running through the mud and oil puddles, his feet pounding against the ground in time with his racing heart. The shadow flew across the rooftops above him.

“Who are you?” Jack didn’t realize he’d said it aloud, punctuated with gasping breaths as he continued to run. _Who are you, and why do they still love you?_

The Bat didn’t hear him. Of course he didn’t. He was high above the city, a god of the people. Champion of the oppressed, or whatever. _Their knight in shining armor._

“I’m going to find you.” Jack’s words, broken with heavy breathing and stifled laughter, caught on the wind. “I’m gonna show them all…how you’re not their champion. You’re just a…man…in a _mask_.”

The Batman was still rising above the rooftops. Jack spat out blood and kept running, his dark eyes flaming with a dangerous light. _I’m not letting you go. I’ll show them. I’ll show everyone. You can’t get away from me._

_You can’t escape. No one can escape._

_I won’t let them._

He didn’t even realize he was laughing until then, breathless giggles that punctuated every word, torn from his lungs in harsh gasps. Tears of laughter stood in his eyes, and he doubled over, his arms coming up to wrap themselves around his chest. “Oh, _Batman…_ they’re scared of you…but they haven’t…they haven’t seen…”

He stumbled, his steps slowing as he watched the vigilante disappear into the darkness. His chest was heaving and his face throbbed from the blows the man had inflicted on him. The wind was cold as it whipped wildly around him, but Jack ignored it all as he stared at the sky with wide eyes, laughter ripping through him as he stood alone in the dark alleyway.

_They haven’t seen me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to go! thanks for reading! :)


	28. Chapter Twenty-Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter! hope you like it, and thanks for reading! :)

Jack turned the page of the crumpled newspaper, holding a bag of ice to his eye as he scanned the column articles along the sides. Most were ads for local jobs, wanted notices put out by the police, and the occasional advice article, but he was looking for something specific. He flipped to the next page, his dark eyes, heavy from a consistent lack of sleep, searching intently for what he was looking for. 

_Suspected Homicide In Dockside Warehouse: Locals Advised to Act Cautiously._ Jack grinned, his gaze latching onto the small headline. He set down the ice and gripped the paper tightly with both hands, taking in the few lines below.

_According to reports, a man dressed in what appeared to be a disguise similar to a circus clown is responsible for the murder of a former mob hitman and smuggler, whose body was found stabbed to death in a warehouse in the Narrows. This man, who has not been identified by sources or the police, is suspected to still be in the area, and has not yet been arrested by the GCPD. The suspect should be considered armed and dangerous, and civilians are advised to be on the lookout until he has been apprehended. If you have any information on the suspect, please contact the police immediately._

“Bingo.” Jack murmured, tossing the paper aside and standing up to look out the window. _All it takes is a little bit of persistence. Soon enough, they’ll all know me. This’ll be more than just a side column. Once Gotham is burning to the ground, they’ll know me._

He hardly noticed his face was still hidden behind the layer of greasepaint, so much so that he hadn’t bothered to remove it once he got home from the botched meeting with the men at the warehouse. It felt like a part of him, just another sign that he wasn’t himself anymore, that he was something different, more powerful. Someone who could do whatever they wanted.

It wasn’t a _disguise…_ not a mask, like the Batman wore. He wasn’t hiding his identity from anyone. This _was_ his identity, he wasn’t using it as a shield or a cover-up for who he was underneath. Whoever _that_ had been, he was gone. 

He’d been gone a long time.

The phone rang, and Jack picked it up, already knowing who it would be. He had called six more men, this time ones who hadn’t worked for the mob, and convinced them to accompany him on the heist. He’d supplied the same outline of what he’d wanted to do with the others, making sure to instruct each one to kill one of the others once the job was finished. And now whoever was on the phone was calling to make sure he wasn’t being duped or manipulated by the police, or he was having second thoughts and wanted out. Whatever it was, Jack didn't care. He was going to keep at this until he got what he wanted, and if it meant failing the first few times, then that was fine.

"What?"

"Is this...?" The man's voice on the other end trailed off uncertainly, and Jack tapped the window pane lightly.

"The person who called you about the heist? That's me."

"Okay. Well, look. I don't want to be like this or anything, but I was wondering…”

“Who I am?” Jack cut him off impatiently, tracing the lines in the wood of the kitchen table. There was silence on the other end. “That’s what you want to know, right?”

“Well, yeah…” the man admitted slowly, and Jack nodded into the phone. He’d expected this. This time, he was ready for it.

“Who I am isn’t important. What matters is what we’re doing. We’re dismantling one of the biggest schemes that runs through this entire city and controls every part of everyone’s lives. This whole…robbery thing, it’s just the very beginning. It doesn’t even matter that much. It’s just lighting the fuse to Gotham’s destruction. _That’s_ what matters.” He paused, deftly shuffling the deck of cards on the table with one hand as he gazed out the window thoughtfully. The night sky, clouded with grey smoke and grime, was black and speckled with tiny stars. He’d seen those stars so many times, stood under the same sky, in the same city. But it wasn’t going to be like this for long. Not anymore. 

The storm was coming, and no one could stop it. Not even Batman. Batman was resilient, he was the dam holding back the inevitable rush of destruction, but that would break someday. It had to. Nothing was strong enough to withstand mass chaos. 

_Nothing._

“All the same,” Jack added as a bit of an afterthought, “I guess it would make you feel better if you knew my name.”

“Um, if you…y’know, if you don’t mind…” the man hesitated, and Jack smiled. One hand came up to brush against the cracked remains of the greasepaint coating his face, then fell back onto the deck of cards he had been holding.

“I don’t. Obviously we’re not exactly gonna be handing out our real identities to one another, but I don’t mind giving you something to call me by. You can tell the other guys too, if they want to know."

"Okay." The man sounded expectant, as if he had spent the entire day summoning up the courage to make this call and was surprised he was actually getting answers. “So, um, what do you…what do you want us to call you?”

Jack flipped the cards in his hand over one at a time, his eyes glittering as the scars along his face stretched into a grin. It wasn’t something he’d given a lot of thought to…more like something that had been waiting to happen for a long time, and he’d just now realized it. Better late then never, at least. 

“Joker.”

“Huh?” The man sounded suspicious, like he was being pranked. 

Jack leaned down to pick up the bag of clown masks he’d bought at the run-down costume shop that sat on the edge of The Narrows, one for each of the men who would help in the heist. He held up one, a pouting face with arched eyebrows and a ring of blue around the downturned mouth. Two spots of red sat on the cheeks like drops of blood. His mind flashed back to a memory that felt like it was from a different lifetime.

A man in a trench coat, running toward a truck full of soldiers, holding a bomb in his trembling hands as Jack aimed his gun at him. The man he’d thought was Hyde, his dead friend who’d been killed in an attack the day before. _Almost forgot about him._ He remembered it all, the leering face of the mask the man had worn, just like the one he was holding now. The way the fire had shot up into the sky in long red-and-yellow tendrils of heat, obliterating everything in a cloud of black, impenetrable smoke.

_You’ve come a long way._

Jack set the mask down on the table, the memory fading away again into oblivion. He remembered the man on the other line was waiting, listening expectantly for an answer. Jack's eyes flickered to the window again, at the city chaos that stirred below.

“You can call me Joker.”

 

\+ + + + + +

 

He stood on the curb of the street, one hand clutching the black duffel bag that secreted a semiautomatic rifle and several rounds of bullets, the other gripping the mask tightly. It was broad daylight, and he kept his eyes fixed to the ground, studying the broken pavement with webbed cracks running through it like hollow veins. _Gotham's ready to fall apart. It always has been. It's just time for the last little push. The final touch._

This was it...what everything had led up to. He realized that now. This had always been inevitable, for him and for the city. He had finally accepted it, accepted that there was no going back, no changing the things that couldn’t be reversed. And now it was Gotham's turn. 

They had to see that the only thing left to turn to was chaos.

And then there was the Batman…the masked vigilante who fascinated and infuriated him, the creature that the people, struggling to live their lives amid the lies and schemes and violence around them, turned to because they had no one else. He was the only thing that stood between them and their destruction.

_But he’s only human._

_We all are._

He watched the shadows of passers-by flit across the dark pavement, remembering how he’d stood in this same place so many times, and how different everything he had been.

But it was always going to come to this.

No matter what he did, it was always _supposed_ to come to this.

His past was burned away now, left behind with only the faintest glimmers poking through from time to time. Not that it mattered, anyway. There was only _now,_ only the endless, dark expanse of whatever was going to come stretching out before him welcomingly. He didn’t know what was going to happen after this, and that was half the fun of it. 

A car pulled up on the curb beside him, the tires screeching as it slid to a halt. He kept his head low as he opened the door and slid into the back seat, craning his neck to catch one final glimpse of the city outside. The unsuspecting, broken city that was so close to the anarchy he knew it could be. Struggling to hold onto hope, taut to the point of snapping as the people shuffled through their lives somberly, living in a colorless world of order that wanted so desperately to fall apart. 

_Don’t worry, I'll show you how to burn it all down._

_Because eventually, everything burns anyway._

Jack smiled faintly, shutting the door behind him and sliding the mask over his face. He set the bag in the seat beside him and glanced up at the driver, who wore a mask similar to his, with tufts of red hair sticking out of the corners. There was another man beside him, also masked. The car swerved back onto the road and sped off toward the bank. Adrenaline rushed through his body as he stared out the window silently, waiting. Everything was in motion, and all that was left for him to see it fall.

The driver twisted his head back to count his two passengers. He nodded at the newcomer, then turned back to the road. Gotham City flashed by as he spoke, his voice low in the heavy silence of the car.

“Three of a kind, let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's all, folks. i would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> thanks again for reading! :)


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